Porepunkah, Victoria 4.65

Porepunkah is a town in northeast Victoria, Australia on the Great Alpine Road, at the foot of Mount Buffalo 320km northeast of the state capital, Melbourne and 5km northwest of Bright. It is part of Alpine Shire local government area and on the banks of the Ovens River, near the Buckland River junction. At the, Porepunkah had a population of 953. The town is named for the Hindi word for "gentle breeze".HistoryEuropean settlement began in the 1830s, but it wasn't until the discovery of gold in the 1850s that development of the town took place. Porepunkah is the nearest modern township to the site of the Buckland Riot, an anti-Chinese race riot that occurred on 4 July 1857.The notorious bushranger Harry Power defied police in the Ovens district for a decade. Power held up the mail coach at Porepunkah on 7 May 1869 after escaping from Pentridge Prison.Porepunkah Post Office opened on 22 February 1870. Although the Post Office doesn't exist exclusively today, the Porepunkah Roadhouse provides Australia Post services to the community as there is no mail service to homes.Porepunkah Primary School (No. 1144) was officially opened on 23 January 1873, with Henry Jeffreys as the headmaster and an enrolment of 43 children. The school remains open today.