While we were camped at Lake Towerrinning we took a little trip out to Six Mile Cottage. The cottage is set in a paddock 10 kilometers north west of Darkan on the Quindanning Road.

When you set your eyes upon the quaint cottage it feels like you are the first person to discover the loan cottage.

Six Mile Cottage is left open and you can explore it at any time. It consists of two rooms and the interior has white washed hessian lining. It gives you an insight into farming life and what it would have been like for families in the early 1900’s.

Richard Strange build the cottage for his brother in-law Joseph Symmonds in the early 1900’s. There is information in the cottage about the founders and there are some interesting stories about how hard life was back in those days.

For example Joseph’s mother Alice and children arrive by train from Bunbury to the end of the line at Collie. They then walked the rest of the thirteen miles to the farm pushing their worldly belongings in wheelbarrows.

They planted an apple orchard and unfortunately it was an unsuccessful venture. The rabbits ate the bark off the trees and the kangaroos ate the apples as they began to fruit.

Can you imagine living with a dirt floor, using hurrican lamps and kerosene table lamps for lighting? Carting drinking water from the dam and using wash basins on benches out the back of the cottage.

It is well worth a visit as it offers a fascinating insight into a way of life which has long passed.

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