WELCOME TO COLERAINE!

Welcome to the Coleraine Community website! Here residents and visitors can find out about this beautiful, historic, little town in south-western Victoria. Use the DIRECTORY menu to discover the sporting and other community groups, local shops and businesses and services available or visit the GALLERY to see a little of what the district offers.

Enjoy our town and district, shop at our local businesses, and keep up to date with Wannon Community News or use our contact form to enquire about any of our community groups or for any other queries or comments you may have.

LOCAL ATTRACTIONS

Within Coleraine there are several well-maintained and attractive parks and picnic areas and walking trails, especially a 2 km walking trail along Bryan Creek. Other places of special interest near Coleraine that visitors and residents may explore include the Peter Francis Points Arboretum, with many walking trails and an amazing collection of eucalypts and other Australian plants, the Hamilton-Coleraine Rail Trail, a 37km hiking and cycling trail and Giant Rock, a volcanic plug about 14 km north of Coleraine, part of the Kanawinka Geopark region of recent volcanic activity. Two beautiful waterfalls, Wannon Falls and Nigretta Falls are also within a short driving distance from Coleraine. Visit or join the Coleraine Historical Society to learn more about our town and its history!

UPCOMING EVENTS

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ABOUT COLERAINE

Coleraine is a rural town on the volcanic plains of western Victoria, located about 340 kms from Melbourne and 470 kms from Adelaide, and settled nearly 200 years ago. Explorer and surveyor Thomas Mitchell was impressed by the agricultural potential of the area and John Bryan, an associate of the Hentys of Portland, took up pastoral occupation of the Coleraine area in 1839, giving rise to the town's original name of Bryan’s Creek Crossing.

During the 1840's, settlement slowly increased with Koroite Inn opening in 1845 and a general store in 1848. Bryans Creek was surveyed as a township in 1853 then renamed Coleraine by Surveyor Lindsay Clarke, after the old, historical town of the same name in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, which was close to his birthplace in County Strabane.

The first school was opened in 1855 and the community held its first race meeting in 1857. Poet and rider Adam Lindsay Gordon competed several times in the Coleraine steeplechase which was first held in 1858 and wrote a ballad commemorating 'The Fields of Coleraine'. Coleraine was the administrative centre for Wannon Shire from 1872 and a railway line was built in 1888 from Hamilton to Coleraine. Coleraine flourished until the middle of the twentieth century when several shires were merged and its importance as a regional centre for the pastoral and agricultural industries was gradually eclipsed by its larger neighbours, Hamilton and Casterton. But it remains a lovely, peaceful town, and a great place to live or visit.

For more information about Coleraine, you may like to visit Victorian Places: Coleraine.