The Hon Mia Davies MLC Member for the Agricultural Region will launch a new visitor attraction at Mangowine Homestead, Nungarin at 11am on Monday 22 November 2010.

The new walk trail which includes a series of panels featuring unexpected images and stories is a joint project between the National Trust of Australia (WA) and the Shire of Nungarin. It cost $100,000 to construct and was supported by Lotterywest trail grant funding.

Mangowine Homestead was built around 1876 and has a proud and continuous tradition of offering hospitality to visitors, according to National Trust Interpretation Manager Anne Brake.

“Mangowine was an important stop off point for prospectors on their way to and from the Goldfields in the late 1880s. It was a wayward inn and quite a social centre,” Ms Brake said.

“The new trail reveals some of the hardship and humour of that journey and of the Adams family who lived at Mangowine and survived a harsh landscape on the eastern frontier of European settlement,” she said.

The newly constructed trail encourages visitors to explore some significant features including a prolific fig tree, wells that were used for swimming practice, the CWA’s first Western Australian restrooms and the grave of Granny Jane Adams who called Mangowine Homestead home. “One of Mangowine’s exceptional qualities is that it’s welcomed visitors in a variety of ways for more than 150 years.

This new attraction enhances its latest program of outdoor concerts and popular yarn nights,” Ms Brake said. National Trust landscape architect Phil Palmer who designed the trail will provide a guided tour before the official opening. The National Trust has cared for Mangowine Homestead since 1968.