Department of Conservation and Land Management
Address: Banksiadale Rd, Dwellingup
Phone: 08 9538 1078
Email: dwell.dis@calm.wa.gov.au
Website: www.naturebase.net
Opening Times: Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 4.30

Where: Starts at the Marrinup townsite.
Distance: 4.5km
Time to complete: 2 hours

1. The trail leaves from the old Marrinup Townsite, established in the 1880’s to harvest jarrah.  Timber resources declined and operations moved to Dwellingup, with the remainder of the town being destroyed in the 1961 Bush Fire.
2. Large Blackbutt trees can be seen growing in the fertile soil of the creek lines.
3. The wooden sleepers of the old tramway tracks built for hauling jarrah logs can still be seen in places, and a creaky bridge crosses a creek that flows most of the year.
4. The entrance to the POW Campsite has information panels displaying photographs of camp life.
5. In the Commanding Officer’s area, prisoners were aloud to build and tend flower gardens; old beds picked out in gravel stones are still visible today.
6. The German compound area has labelled foundations; the German prisoners were used as woodcutters, supplying firewood from the surrounding jarrah forest to Perth.  Some 2,500 tonnes a week.
7. The Italian compound was basically a transit area for workers on their way to farms or rural control centers.
8. The area surrounding the camp and some of the sleeping hut area has been mined for bauxite.  This area has since been landscaped and replanted. All the other forest around the POW Camp is the native jarrah forest and redgum, which is mostly re-growth after the onslaught of the Marrinup firewood cutters.

*Maps can be obtained from the Dwellingup Visitor Centre