Toodyay, WA

History meets fun in this WA Wheatbelt town.

Story Aleisha Orr  Photo Alamy

During the colder months of the year, the hills that surround Toodyay often trap the morning mist that hovers in the valley. This mist is what the Wheatbelt town, 85km north-east of Perth, on a bend of the Avon River, was named for: ‘Toodyay’ is said to be a roughly translated version of the Noongar word ‘dudja’, meaning mist.

Today, these hills provide tranquil surrounds for the locals, many of whom live on lifestyle blocks. However, back in the 1860s they provided the perfect hiding spot for ex-convict-turned-bushranger Joseph Bolitho Johns. Moondyne Joe, as he was better known (after the Moondyne Hills near Toodyay, where he would secrete himself), became regarded as somewhat of a hero for his ability to evade the authorities. In 1861 Joe was found to have illegally branded a brumby and was jailed in a convict hiring depot in Toodyay. He not only escaped, but did so on the back of the very brumby he had branded, using the local magistrate’s saddle and bridle. He would go on to escape from Fremantle Gaol multiple times.

The annual Moondyne Festival, on May 4 this year, celebrates this bushranger past and the town’s early days. Husband and wife Neville and Julie HoyPoy have been coordinating the festival since 2021. Like many others, they came to the town for a tree change.

Just a few months after relocating to Toodyay they saw a notice in the local newspaper about the festival needing volunteers. “We had plans to get involved in town, so I said to Neville, ‘Let’s go and have a look at the meeting’,” Julie says. They walked out of that meeting tasked with running the event.