Portland

Postcode: 2847

Portland is a town in New South Wales, Australia. It is 2 1/2 hours from Sydney, and 40 minutes to Bathurst and 30 minutes from Lithgow. The town is of interest as an historic mining town and as the place of the first cement works in Australia, which was opened in 1902. Cement produced at the Portland cement works helped build the city of Sydney and the cement was shipped around Australia until the works closed in 1991.

Portland is part of the gateway to the Central West and is located between Oberon, Mudgee, Bathurst, Lithgow and the Blue Mountains. The town is surrounded by countryside and has many areas for bushwalking. It is close to the Wollemi and Gardens of Stone National Parks.

The Portland district was occupied by the Wiradjuri people prior to white settlement. The first European in the immediate vicinity was James Blackman who surveyed a road from Bathurst to the present site of Wallerawang in 1820. The following year he journeyed north from Wallerawang, marking out a road to what is now Mudgee. In the process he passed only a few kilometres to the east of Portland and crossed the Cudgegong River. Today Blackmans Flat and Blackmans Crown bear his name.

Today one of the interesting aspects of Portland is that it is still very much connected to the nearby coalmines. Note, as you drive through the town, the number of houses that are burning coal and the number of houses with coal piles outside.

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