Cookernup
Postcode: 6220
Cookernup is a town located in the South West of Western Australia just off the South Western Highway, between Waroona and Harvey.
In 1835, Stephen Henty and Thomas Peel were the first Europeans to visit the area, being guided through the reaches of the Harvey River by local Aboriginal people.
Cookernup’s name derives from an Aboriginal name meaning “the place of the swamp hen” (cooki). The first settler, Joseph Logue, came to the area in 1852 with his extended family in search of good farming land, acquiring a 9,000 ha grant which he called Kookernup. He later settled on the north bank of a nearby brook, now called Logue Brook. The area was important in the milling and transport of local timber, with a railway reserve being constructed for timber stacking. In the early 1890s, Cookernup had a much greater population than Harvey, and had a school and telegraph office several years earlier.
Nearby Logue Brook Dam (6 km to the east), set in jarrah forests on the western boundary of the Murray State Forests, has a number of camping, accommodation and recreational facilities, and offers bushwalking, horse-riding, waterskiing, canoeing and ropes courses. Warrawarrup (5 km to the south) is a small village and home to the Harvey Trotting Track. It was originally planned as a growth area, but the growth failed to eventuate.