Around Collie

We had a look around Collie today, which didn’t take long at all. According to what we read, there’s a population of about 9,000 but it doesn’t seem quite that large.


There’s a walk along the river, through an arboretum with stands of eucalypts from the eastern states, so we walked along there between showers this morning. It’s a pleasant walk, about 2 km, across one bridge, through the arboretum to the other bridge and back along the river. That’s the plan, but we missed the path back along the river and ended up closer to the old railway line than the river. It was a good walk anyway, and ends up in the Soldiers’ Park, which has a memorial rose garden and obelisk. There are lots of roses here, all looking beautiful, covered in blooms.

Then we went for a drive to find the brewery which is supposed to be open from 12-5 pm, according to the map. We were a bit early, so went out to Wellington Dam, about 20 km out of town. There are some good information boards there about the construction of the dam and also the Aboriginal story of the snake (not the Rainbow Serpent, another one) that created the Collie River.

Back to the brewery, which was closed. We found out later that they’ve changed their hours and don’t open on Thursdays now, so missed out on trying the beer, so we went to a winery instead and tried a couple of their products. The whites were pretty good, but Les didn’t like the reds much.

After all that it was time for a coffee and another walk around the town – we feel almost like locals by this time – and trying to decide about dinner. We ended up at the pub where we had dinner last night for a steak, which was a good meal. It’s a real workers’ pub in a coal-mining town, quite different to any pubs I’ve been in for a long time!

In the morning we’ll pack up and head for Bunbury where we’ve decided to have a couple of days before going to Fremantle for our last 4 nights in WA. We didn’t really see Bunbury on the way down, so it will be a chance to have a bit of a look around.