100 Towns

1. Mudgee main street 2. Town clock and art deco picture theatre 3. Anglican Church 4. Catholic Church 5. Railway station 6. Vineyards Mudgee (population 8000) was settled as early as the 1820s. It started small with growth exploding during the gold rush period.  Following that the wool growing sustained the town and the wine industry began.  Wine growing is now a major industry of the region with more than 40 wineries in the district. With its high quality big-town facilities, wineries and rich farmland it is a very popular tourist destination and the kind of town attractive to tree changers. It's well worth spending a weekend (or two) here.

1. Lue Hotel 2. Old shops 3. Cemetery 4. Railway bridge 5. Railway station Lue is a small town (population 100) on the road to Mudgee.  It once would have served the rural community but today is more noticeable for its past than its present.

1.  Rylstone Post Office 2.  Railway Station 3. Anglican Church, St James 4. Catholic Church, St Malachy's  5. Wesleyan Church  6. Dwelling 7. Dwelling 8. Cafe culture 9. Another historic building Rylstone is a delightful town. It began as a rural centre in the early 1800s. In the 1870s and 1880s substantial stone civic, commercial and religious buildings were built. These give the town its special character. Today the entire business district is classified as a Heritage Conservation Zone. It's the perfect spot for a weekend getaway with good food outlets, all the amenities of a substantial town, and plenty of interesting drives in the surrounding area.

1. Town clock, Kandos 2. Ropeway from quarry to cement works 3. Shopping centre 4. Railway hotel 5. Rotunda Kandos was a town build on cement but sadly the cement works closed last year and the ropeway buckets that carried limestone from the quarry to the factory are now still. Back in 1915 Kandos started as a private town when some entrepreneurial men saw the benefit of limestone, coal and the new railway line as an opportunity to get a cement industry going.  The town's name was created using the initials of these men. It is an eclectic and interesting town with a population of around 1300 people, well worth dropping by when you are travelling this way. It's also a great area to spend a weekend.

1. Home with mountains behind, Charbon 2. Town park 3. Street view Charbon (home to about 150 people) is a mining settlement started in the 1920s.  The neat grid of streets has tidy fibro workers cottages nestled by a backdrop of mountains.  The nearby Charbon colliery operates both underground and open cut mines digging coal mostly for export.  A coal train departs each day destined for Port Kembla. The town has a park but no shops and other facilities because it is just a couple of kilometres from the bigger centre of Kandos.

1. Closed Railway station, Clandulla 2. Closed general store 3. Closed school 4. One of the local houses 5. The rural setting Clandulla is a railway town.  It sprung into being with the arrival of the railway which facilitated the opening of a coal mine nearby.  With 30 or 40 houses in the vicinity of the railway station it's alive but seems to never have been much of a town in the typical sense -- it doesn't seem to have had churches or a hotel.  There is a general store now very closed like the railway station. Many of the houses are rudimentary and most are set well apart from each other. But it's close to bigger centres and is in a peaceful scenic setting, enough to attract city folk like us to buy into its rural tranquility.

1. Old roadhouse, Ilford 2. Stone house 3. School sign 4. Church 1 5. Church 2 6. Church 3 Ilford has three churches so must have had the population to support these at some time in its past.  It was a stagecoach stop and served as a busy staging point for rural goods.  It was also on one of the roads to the gold diggings though gold was not found around Ilford. It's decline started when the railway bypassed the town.  The station called Ilford was some 12kms away (later becoming Clandulla).  There a some houses and a closed roadhouse and cafe adding to the sense of a place well past it's prime but the school is alive and well with 28 students.

1. St John's Union Church, Running Stream 2. Running Stream Public School 3. Near Foxwood Farm cafe Foxwood Farm specialises in making great apple pies and there is other good food to be had as well, making it the perfect stopping place on the way to Mudgee. Running Stream is a tiny community which has been serving as a stopping place on that route for all its life. There is a church, a school and the cafe as a wayside stop in among lovely farming land. Worth the break.

1. Entry sign to Capertee Valley 2. The valley from lookout 3. Railway station 4. Royal Hotel, Capertee 5. Catholic church, on the outskirts of the town. The canyon of the Capertee Valley is apparently 1 km longer than the Grand Canyon but not as deep. It's beautiful and impressive but to me nowhere near as impressive as the Grand Canyon. Sheep properties were established in the valley in the 1840s and the village, with a reliable water source, was a good rest stop on the road to Mudgee. With the arrival of the railway in 1882 the valley was opened up for coal, limestone and old shale mining. It's a small town (population around 200) but has lots of facilities - a school, police station (with police who are often out breath testing), community hall, Royal hotel, churches and a combined garage/shop/post office so ticking along nicely. The town itself may not be the perfect destination but the surrounding area is magnificent and there are bed and breakfasts and far

1. Roadside stalls at Ben Bullen 2. Old house, perhaps once a shop. 3. Disused railway station I guess Ben Bullen is a railway town with a small community of four or five houses springing up around the small railway station.  The station is now derelict, Taking a short drive up the single street we saw there was once a tennis court and down at the vacant lot over the road from the railway there are regularly sellers set up to sell local produce. It's the size of town that you could blink and miss but as it is located at the spot where the road crosses the railway line at a level crossing so you had better not blink.  The line is still in use by a coal train about once a day.

1. Cullen Bullen welcome sign 2. General store 3. House on the outskirts of town 4. Royal Hotel 5. Opposition to mining While Cullen Bullen was originally a wayside point on the road to Mudgee and blossomed further when gold was discovered further up the road it really came into it's own with the arrival of the railway which made coal mining in the region viable.  Ever since it has been sustained by mining with varying degrees of success. Today there is a move to expand the open cut mine in the region but there is opposition to this, a least by some of the locals. The townsfolk may prize their lifestyle but for the visitor there doesn't appear to be an awful lot to see and do in Cullen Bullen.

1. Portland Cement works 2. Heritage industrial building  3. Heritage industrial building 4. Worker's cottage 5. Main street There is a sadness at Portland.  All down one side of the long main street is closed off - industrial buildings, workers cottages, parklands.  The closed off area is the site of the Portland Cement Works which sustained the town for 100 years and shut down in the 1990s.  Portland was a company town. It is hard to imagine the impact of that closure. Today Portland (population 2000) is a bit of a struggle town but kept ticking by the nearby Mount Piper Power Station (which opened about the time the cement works closed), mining and rural activities. I think it is a rather nice town with a pleasant historic feel to it.  I do hope that one day the heritage industrial buildings are put to good use. There are 'signs of yesteryear' murals on many of the shops.  I am annoyed at not having taken a photograph but I think I realised these were modern

1. Wallerawang Power Station 2. Wallerawang Royal Hotel 3. Old railway station 4. Storage sheds by the railway line 5. Lake Wallace Wallerawang began as a staging point on the road to the west. The railway which reached Lithgow in the 1869 and Wallerawang in 1870 helped develop the town.  Until the line extended to Bathurst, some six years later, passengers alighted at Wallerawang to join Cobb & Co coaches for their onward journey. Oil shale, coal mining and power generation have sustained the town since then.  The power station which began operation in 1957 has been instrumental in developing the western coal fields. A little further up the road is the newer Mount Piper Power Station, built in 1990. Power generation requires water and Lake Wallace provides this, as well as being a lovely local amenity.

1. Lithgow City Welcome Sign 2. Blast Furnace Park 3. Workers cottages 4. Hassans Walls lookout 4. State Mine Heritage Park 5. The big miners lamp Lithgow is a small city (population 21,000) built on an industrial  base.  The city of proud of its tradition which is brought to life at Blast Furnace Park (site if an old steel mill), the State Mine Heritage Park (old coal mine) and the Small Arms Museum.  Today, there is still plenty of industry with coal mines and large power stations in the area. Located in a very scenic location at the edge of the Blue Mountains, Lithgow is a modern and house proud city -- Australia's Tidiest Town in 2011. Lithgow is fascinating and attractive place to visit which may surprise, given its industrial backdrop. The intercity trains visit many times each day so give yourself a treat and come out for the ride.