Pinjarra - Dwellingup

When we left Perth we decided to head south via some of the inland, rather than coastal, towns as there were a couple of places that sounded interesting. First stop was Pinjarra, where the Edenvale Homestead is an historic site. The Homestead was built in 1888. It was the home of Sir Ross McLarty, a Premier of WA, but that wasn't why we went there. If you haven't figured it out yet, I really like heritage buildings and this looked like a nice place to stop and explore. The Homestead has tea rooms (which we didn't visit), a machinery museum, art and craft shop and gallery (which we did visit). The one thing that stood out for me was the height of the ceilings in the house. I think they must have been around 12'!

Greg wants to build a barn like this at home. It's the machinery museum

Rory loved the well. Thank goodness it was covered

The kids played at the playground on the banks of the Murray River, which was very picturesque every time we saw it, and I had a brief chance to walk through the heritage rose garden. There was also an old church, complete with gravestones of pioneers, a suspension foot bridge and a lovely timber bridge over the river but it was very hot and we had no sunscreen, so we didn't stop long.

 

This is bridge no 5 for this spot. It's been washed out in floods a number of times now

The roses were beautifully perfumed

From Pinjarra we headed to Dwellingup, as this too sounded like a nice town to visit, based on the tourist information guides. We also planned to free camp at the Dwellingup Townsite Camp in the state forest. It was a pretty good free camp. The road in had been recently graded, so it was less bumpy than some bitumen roads we've been on, and the surrounding forest was a lovely backdrop. There were a few other people camping there too.

The drive in, showing the forest we camped in

It is a short drive through the State Forest to a Prisoner of War Camp, so we went to check it out. One of the things I am learning on this trip is that there is so much history to do with the war in Australia, from sites on the west coast that were bombed to the downed Catalina's at Broome to a number of POW sites. It was Marrinup POW No 16 Camp and was home to both Italian and German prisoners of war. Over 3500 Italian POW passed through this camp site to other camps or unguarded farm work after Italy's surrender in 1943. 300 German prisoners were held in this camp, working as woodcutters. They arrived after the Italians had constructed the camp. They were professional soldiers who had  served in the Luftwaffe, Arika Corp and some of them had been on the Kormoran which sank the HMAS Sydney. They were considered dangerous to our country's security. There are building remnants and walking trails to check it all out. I found it hard to get my head around the fact they caught these POW overseas and then shipped them back to Australia, to this patch of bush inland in WA and put them to work cutting timber and keeping them from escaping.

We visited to Forest Heritage Centre, which was interesting. We didn't pay to do the walk or anything, partly because we didn't want to pay to walk through a forest but mostly because it was almost closing time and we wouldn't have had  time to enjoy it, so we just checked out the shop. There were a lot of interesting timber products for sale, and other felted, glass and ceramic products made by local artists. The lady working there took us through to where a gentleman makes rocking horses and showed us some in progress, including the spray booth where he paints some of the finished ones. She was very nice, great with the kids and full of lots of information.

We drove to Lane Pool National Park. This is a beautiful place where you can camp. It was so busy some of the campsites were full. The Murray River runs through the National Park and it would have been pretty awesome to put the canoe in and paddle up or down it to explore, but there was a distinct lack of interest from everyone. Greg and I did discuss staying an extra day and doing that the following day, but in the end we moved on. I am envious of the people who live here and get to go camping in such a beautiful location, but in all honesty, I'd have probably hated it on the Saturday we drove through as it was so busy I don't think it would have been all that enjoyable.

We had a rather bizarre experience at the Dwellingup IGA. On the counter they had the 2017 Rescue Dogs calendar for sale and on the front of it was a picture of a dog that was the spitting image of Millie. Given that she was a cross breed we got from the pound in 2000, it was very weird to see almost the exact same dog (down to a red collar) on the front of a 2017 calendar in WA.

Before leaving the next morning Greg went riding one of the mountain bike trails in the State Forest. He enjoyed it and took Tilda with him while Rory and I rode a small trail just near  the free camp site. Rory had a blast! You couldn't keep the smile off this face and we went down the track and back up the road to start again about 10 times. There was a little jump and a small rocky patch which were perfect for his balance bike, (Mountain biking on a balance bike sounds so funny!)


I am really glad we drove the inland route rather than the coastal highway as it was a very pretty country drive through rolling green hills, with cows and pasture and sheep and all sorts of lovely green spaces. It was definitely worth seeing not just the towns of Pinjarra and Dwellingup, but also those further south as we headed to Busselton.