Guide to Dalwallinu Western Australia Australia

Dalwallinu is a sheep and wheat farming town located three hours’ drive north of Perth along the Great Northern Highway.

Dalwallinu is the first town along the Wildflower Way, a route that stretches north to Mullewa and showcases beautiful wildflowers carpeting the countryside. The wildflower season is from July to October, and during this time thousands of nature enthusiasts make the trip along the Way.

Every September, Dalwallinu hosts the Wattle Week Festival to celebrate the wildflower season. A street parade, market day and cabaret are some of the festivities.

Dalwallinu has an interesting history. The first graziers in the district were Benedictine monks from New Norcia who shepherded sheep on vast pastoral leases taken up in the nineteenth century. However, European settlers arrived at Dalwallinu in 1907 with the ambition to develop the area into a wheat-growing region.

In 1909 the land was surveyed and in 1910 it was opened up for selection. The first crops were sown the same year. Pioneers in the area demonstrated tremendous strength and diligence as they endured basic living standards while they established their first crops. Towns formed along the railway line that was completed in 1914.

Previous to European settlement, the first known occupants of the land which now comprises the Shire of Dalwallinu were Aboriginal groups who had no strict boundaries, but used the area for hunting and gathering in the nomadic fashion.

The Badima people live in the northern tracts of the shire, while the Galamaia people occupy land throughout the shire and beyond.

Accommodation is available at a hotel/motel, bed and breakfast and caravan park.