Bridgetown, your bloomin' lot
By Kim Murray
Driving into Bridgetown is like arriving in one huge garden.
While putting together this section for Margaret River Online we spent
several weekends in the district, timed to coincide with the open gardens
festival.
The blossoms of spring and early summer were just overwhelming. In response to a question about what fertilisers one of the gardeners used she replied: “We don’t use any. We pop roses in the ground and two years later we are having to attack them with a machete.”
She wasn’t joking. We were standing back admiring a rambling rose that in two years had completely covered the side of a studio attached to an historic house, and the blossoms were just outrageous.
Bridgetown is one of a handful of towns given the Historic Town title by the WA National Trust, and the title has been well earned. First settled by whites in the late 1850s some of the early buildings have been preserved down the years and are open to the public.
Many of the buildings in the tree-lined main street are more than 100 years old and they add to the successful rural ambience that comes from a town that is the seat of the shire and the centre of a productive agricultural district.
Bridgetown is located on the banks of the Blackwood River in a valley formed by the steeply undulating chocolate brown loamy terrain that one gardener referred to as mud cake.
The river is crossed via a magnificent timber bridge that was built in 1981. At 127.5m it is the longest span jarrah bridge in WA and it traverses the longest river in the south west.
The district today a thriving community based on agriculture, fruit growing, tree farming, mining for tin and tantalum and tourism.
It plays host to the Blackwood Classic Power Boat Race (claimed to be the longest in the world), Blackwood Marathon Relay, Blues at Bridgetown and Country Open Gardens.
The town boasts two art galleries, three wineries, a cidery, several grand old hotels, beautiful riverside walks, parks in which to picnic, restaurants and cafes and a host of tempting shops, including one given over year round to Christmas. It also has a jigsaw museum that was undergoing refurbishment when we were there.