Today at York

Today was a day to explore the hinterland a bit more behind a freemantle and Perth.  First stop was Beverly. Beverley is a quiet, historic wheatbelt town located on the banks of the Avon River. It is a typical wheatbelt service centre with an attractive main street, a couple of museums and a sense of peacefulness of a Western Australian country town. We called into a gallery and spent nearly an hour being shown around by a rather eccentric lady who was obviously very proud of her partner's metalwork pieces. Next we partook of coffee and hot chocolate and a French Vanilla slice at a very busy local Vietnamese bakery. Yum.  Next stop was York. Is is the oldest inland town in Western Australia. The area was first settled in 1831, two years after Perth was settled in 1829. A town was established in 1835 with the release of town allotments and the first buildings were erected in 1836. York has many important heritage buildings, some dating from the 1850s and 1860s, and many from the Gold Rush period (1885 to 1900). The entire town site of York has been listed as an Historic Town on the Register of the National Estate of the Commonwealth of Australia. We have had a lovely social day. York has decided to supply free camping for caravans down by the river and even has 4 power outlets which were already in use when we got there but as we didn't need power we decided to stay there anyway. (Later in the day we did however manage to get power as some people left.)

Here we met a lovely Indonesian family. All it took was a smile from us and this was enough encouragement for the patriarch of the family to ask about our van. Before too long we had the whole family gathered around to watch us putting it up. They were fascinated and we conducted tours of all that was inside.  Afterwards they insisted on us sharing their lunch and before long they had bought over several containers of food. We sat with them while we ate and had a lovely time. 

In the afternoon we wandered up the street to the township. Geoff immersed himself in the Car Museum and I checked out the heritage buildings. Geoff said the museum was world class with many unique exhibits. 

Beautiful heritage buildings

Town hall  

Later in the afternoon we took a walking tour over the Swinging bridge which was fun and wandered around the really old houses over the other side of the river. 

 

First church in town

We stopped to chat with a couple who had 2 gorgeous dogs and they invited us in to play with the dogs.  They were so friendly and when the gentleman who was a surveyor realised Geoff was also one, they invited us to call in over Easter to their place in Freemantle. 

A Cobb and co staging post

I It was getting late so we got back to try to cook tea before dark.