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Cambray Siding was once the site of a small town that was part of the timber industry in the south west.
It was apparently the site of an 'alternative' festival back in the 1960s and is located at the end of Cambray Road (unsealed)
that leads west from Vasse Highway.
Today it is a quiet bush site next to some large pools in a tributary of the Blackwood River. The pools once held water for steam
engines that used the rail line.
The old rail lines are long gone and apart from a couple of filled in water tanks by the side of the trail, there is nothing to show
where the small settlement once stood.
The Munda Biddy Trail (cycle trail) runs past the Cambray Siding site and the area is best visited in late winter or early
spring when the wildflowers are blooming and the pools are at their peak after the winter rains.
Ian Moore kindly sent us the following iinformation via our YouTube channel:
Little known facts about Cambrey Siding.
It was a watering stop for the steam trains that ran between the Nannup Mill & Barrabup sawmills & Busselton.
They would pump water up into an overhead tank to fill the steam trains water tender tanker.
In the 1970's there used to be an annual nude bathing weekend festival held there for all the dope smoking hippies / flower power
people.
QLD based federal politician Dr Jim Cairns & his hippie girlfriend Juni Morosey - were attending one year & to avoid the risk of
the Nannup Police arresting him and making it into a political scandal, Dr Cairns had the site declared a Federally approved
official Nude Bathing Beach!
So don't be surprised if you see people swimming in the water hole there (which is part of the St Johns Brook), getting about
Buck Nekkid, as the classification / legislation has never been removed to this day so it's still perfectly legal.
Straya mate, gotta love it.
Later years at the annual hippie festival there was no potable freshwater so the organisers contracted a local plumber (Hanky Head
was his Nick name), to cart water out there in his tanker truck & they had a above ground swimming pool erected to store the water
so everyone could have freshwater for drinking and bathing etc.
Old Hanky Head had been brain injured in a head on car crash many years before hand and wasn't the sharpest tool
in the shed. He hosed out his silage tank that he used to pump septics, and filled that with fresh water, and delivered it to the
festival pool storage tank for the weekend. Everyone got dysentery & hepatitis etc.
That was I think the last hippy festival ever held at Cambrey siding.
Used to be part of my district when I lived in Nannup and was the Forester & Wildlife Officer for the area.
Some good marron to be caught in that water hole during the marron season."
Best time to visit:
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Jan
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Feb
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Mar
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Apr
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May
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Jun
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Jul
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Aug
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Sep
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Oct
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Nov
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Dec
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