Toodyay

We have now left the WA coast and headed inland, happy to be away from the constant coastal wind. On our way we stopped at New Norcia, which is a monastery settlement built by Benedictine monks in the middle of the 18th century. There are now only about a dozen monks, but the monastery still owns all the land in and around the town, and the only residents are the monks themselves and the people the monks employ to do all the work. The mission was founded to minister to the local aboriginal people and to provide an education to both the aboriginals and the settlers' children. At one stage there were four completely separate schools run by the monastery - aboriginal boys were taught to be farm hands and tradesmen, aboriginal girls trained as domestic servants, white girls taught refined arts such as sewing and music and white boys actually given what we would consider a proper education, including such esoterica as reading and arithmetic. Over time the schools were merged and the overt discrimination was dropped. Once the supply of teaching monks started to dry up in about the 1970's, and the monks had to hire lay teachers and actually pay them a salary, the schools became uneconomic, and the buildings are now hired out for things such as school camps and company seminars. We did a tour of the town, which included entry into one of the monastery prayer rooms, the town church and several chapels in the old school buildings. The nativity fresco on the wall of the church (shown above) has a distinctly Australian feel!

Toodyay (pronounced 2jay) itself is only about 90 km east of Perth, and has all the hallmarks of a weekend getaway and Sunday lunch town - lots of cafes and museums in quaint restored buildings, all with lovely big verandahs. There is also a rail connection for commuters into Perth

which runs morning and evening. The Avon river runs through town, and through a national park about 30km west of town. We went to the park thinking there'd be interesting walking tracks, but apart from one not very interesting lookout there was virtually nothing to see. You certainly couldn't do any bush walking - notwithstanding the flyer on the park boasting of its 'wilderness values', in fact the area was an army firing range mid last century, and there are signs warning you not to leave the road due to the possibility of 'unexploded ordinance'. We didn't have to be told twice.

Having got so close to the city we decided to drive to the suburban outskirts, and experienced our first big city shopping centre since leaving Darwin nearly 3 months ago (and Darwin isn't really a big city anyway). We felt like country cousins, getting excited by so many shops in one place! We also filled up the Patrol with fuel, diesel was the cheapest we have seen on the trip since long ago Port Augusta, and 10 cents cheaper than even here at Toodyay.

As well as doing the history walk around Toodyay, we also drove up the Avon Valley, which is quite pretty and green, dotted with historic towns, and several wineries. It was certainly a much more civilised tourist experience than most we have had so far on this trip!