Leongatha, Victoria

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leongatha is a town in the foothills of the Strzelecki Ranges, South Gippsland Shire, Victoria, Australia, located 133 kilometres south-east of Melbourne via the South Gippsland Highway. The town is the commercial, educational and civic centre of the region, with some 6,500 people living in the town itself, and 25,000 in the surrounding area.

The Murray-Goulburn Dairy Co-operative, which trades under the Devondale label, has a processing plant just north of the town producing milk-based products for Australian and overseas markets.

First settlement of the area by Europeans occurred in 1845, and the opening of the railway line from Melbourne in 1892 stimulated further settlement.

Leongatha was recently blanketed in snow for the first time in almost twenty years. Local residents were seen skiing the tenth fairway at the Leongatha Golf Club, and many were featured on the front page of both The Age and The Herald Sun newspapers on Thursday August 11, 2005.

As of November 2006, Leongatha have only 15% of water in their reservoir left, due to the drought.

[edit] Tourism

The Leongatha Food and Wine Festival is held annually in January to showcase the region's produce.
The South Gippsland Railway runs historical diesel locomotives and railcars between Nyora and Leongatha, passing through Korumburra.
The railway line from Leongatha to Foster has been converted into the Great Southern Rail Trail, for the shared use of horseriding, walking and cycling.