Toodyay is the natural choice for a winter daytrip

To mark the first day of a Western Australian winter, and after an absence of many months, at 5.50am on a Sunday morning I set off for the small town of Toodyay. As the road eventually dips into the valley, the low-hanging clouds and mist before me, a refulgent sunrise beyond, I feel as though I am entering one of those depictions of the sublime by Von Guerard. Driving slowly down Stirling Terrace, everything is draped in the most finely-wrought gossamer lace.

The pie, coffee and donut at the Toodyay Bakery are as divine as I remembered them. Already feeling blessed, I take a stroll through the town, observing the exteriors of such historic sites as the Memorial Hall (1899), the Old Gaol (1852), the St Aloysius Convent of Mercy (1903-1929), and the Public Library (1874).

As I wander through the convent complex — comprising the former St Aloysius Convent of Mercy, classrooms, boys’ and girls’ boarding houses, Dr Growse’s House, the old presbytery, and St John the Baptist Church — I recall with fondness having stayed in the boarding house during a primary school camp. I note the slightly dissonant mixture of architectural styles — Victorian Georgian, Federation Arts and Crafts, Federation Queen Anne — a row of placid pigeons on one of the roofs, and a small statue of St Francis of Assisi under a tree.

Toodyay is one of WA’s oldest inland towns, European settlement beginning there in 1836 in the Avon Valley region formerly inhabited by the Ballardong Noongar people. (York has the distinction of being the oldest WA inland town, having been settled in 1831.) The original settlement was known as Toodyay, but after the establishment of a Convict Hiring Depot between 1851 and 1868 about 3km upriver, a new township called Newcastle grew around the depot. Newcastle was renamed Toodyay in 1910, and the original site became West Toodyay.

Previously beset by floods and fires, Toodyay today wears its scars nobly, its mixture of immaculately restored heritage sites, more contemporary dwellings and commercial premises, its spectacular natural scenery and short (just over an hour), picturesque drive from the Perth CBD making it a natural choice for a winter daytrip. On the way there or back, don’t forget to drop into the Gidgegannup Bakery & Cafe and/or Noble Falls as midway pitstops.