Maffra

• Summary
• Weather for Maffra

This attractive town, with its tree-lined nineteenth century style main street, is named after Maffra in Portugal, reputedly because many of the early settlers from the Monaro, NSW, region had fought in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsula War.

In 1862 Maffra grew in stature when a punt over the Macalister River enabled travellers to get to the goldfields. During the 1890s a sugar beet industry started and operated until the weather and competition for labour from the dairying ended it after World War II.

Today it is intensive dairying country and the hub of the rich Macalister dairying, agricultural, pastoral and irrigation region. There is a great sense of history surrounding the town – shop verandas have been retained and grand homesteads such as the ‘Duart’ and ‘Powerscourt’, built last century, are still serving the tourists today.