Tourism and heritage website Western Australia Now and Then recently toured Collie to explore its attractions.
Led by site creator Marc Glasby, the site’s group of photographers visited locations such as Wellington National Park, Wellington Dam, Black Diamond, Glen Mervyn Dam, Honeymoon Pool and Harris River Dam in early February.
The group also developed YouTube videos about their visit.
Mr Glasby said the team set out to explore areas they had not visited or studied before.
“Harris Dam – I hadn’t been to so we weren’t really aware of what was there so we got to see the picnic area and had a look at the pumping station and all that sort of gear that’s up there, and the lake that sits in front of the dam that’s quite a pleasant little area,” he said.
“We also got to explore a little bit further down at Glen Mervyn, I’ve been camping there before but I had never been right down the tracks at the back of that place so we took a 4WD and went down some of the back tracks there and had a look around which was pretty good too.”
Mr Glasby said they visited Collie previously and took photos of attractions such as Soldiers Park, the Premier Hotel, Federal Hotel, Collie Museum, Colliefields and the old Collie Police Station.
The photographer said the team, after picking a place to go, uses Google Earth to find unique sights within each area.
He said the town’s heritage sites, forest regions, hills and rivers make for an attractive region.
“We’ve been to Collie quite a few times, we’ve been going up there for years, but there are still quite a few places I want to have a look at in Collie that I’ve seen on Google Earth but we just had limited time on this trip,” he said.
“The area around it is pretty hard to beat – the forests and the river that comes through the area is a really brilliant area for people to go up and visit.
“A lot of people really don’t know it that well, like I say, we’ve been there a few times but we’ve never really explored it thoroughly, to see everything that’s there and I reckon you could go a couple of dozen times and still not see it all.”
The idea for the website began in 1997 when Mr Glasby travelled around Australia in a 1962 Bedford bus named The Western Belle.
The team has travelled across the state to the Kimberley, Pilbara, Gascoyne, Murchison, Great Southern, South West and Goldfields regions.
For more information about the trip and Mr Glasby’s photography, head to wanowandthen.com/.
