Hillston

About Hillston

Hillston is a township in western New South Wales in Carrathool Shire, located on the Lachlan River 683 kilometres west of Sydney. Originally called Redbank from the Wiradjuri word Melnunni meaning red soil, it was renamed Hillston in 1869 after William Ward Hill, a stockman from Roto station who established the Redbank Hotel in 1863. Explorer John Oxley visited the district in 1817 and wrote the area was country uninhabitable and useless for all purposes of civilised man. Despite that assessment, the town survived boom-and-bust cycles driven by wool, soldier settlement schemes, cotton and drought. Lake Woorabinda is a man-made lake for water-skiing with a walking track. Willandra National Park features the heritage-listed Willandra Homestead. Agriculture includes livestock, grain, cotton, citrus and vegetables using irrigation from the Lachlan River and groundwater. The climate is hot semi-arid with average rainfall of about 367 millimetres per year.