Here's why you should take the scenic route to Perth!

Aussies love a big roadside attraction, from the Big Pineapple in Cairns, to the Big Boxing Kangaroo in the Northern Territory, but a 15km stretch of road in WA known as the ‘Tin Horse Highway’ might feature the most bizarre and hilarious big attractions of them all.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The dusty paddocks around Coolan in Western Australia are legendary,
not because of the endless, bright yellow canola crops, though
they're there too, or the wide blue skies, which they
definitely have. No Coolan is a place of its own.
Where other roads might be lined with shops or trees,
this stretch of highway is home to something entirely different.

(00:25):
I'm Amanda Keller and we're saddling up for brain fuel
great aussy stories from the Road, fueled by Ampol, Australia's own.
Back in the nineties, the small town of Coolan was
locked in a battle with other nearby towns to keep
people in the bush. Farming was on the decline. Local

(00:46):
businesses were struggling and residents were moving back to the city.
But they hit on an idea, the Coolan Bush Races,
a weekend of live entertainment, fireworks and community. All they
needed was a marketing hook.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
The wife of a farmer said, why don't you build
a tin horse in the shape of a horse, obviously.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
To advertise that this is where the bush racers are.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
That's Barry West, the shire president out at Cooland.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
So he did, and it was a pretty plain, simple horse.
It was just a horse standing in a paddic painted
and it was pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
So then another sort of farmer on that highway or
the side he'd do one.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
It became, oh, yeah, he's done one, so we.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Might do one, but we'll go on a bit better
than what they did, and it sort of grew.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
He's not just a fan of the ten horses, he's
also one of the creators of these magnificent beasts.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
The west cooland boys got together and we built the
biggest one out of the whole lot. But it sort
of came a sort of bit of a fun competition thing.
So there's a lot of them, Like there's a hockey player,
and there's there's a.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Couple they are playing.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Once one hundred and seventy two made a water slide
of a couple of ten horses going down, a couple
of guys that fly like there's one playing a violin
of west Cool and Whopper, there's obviously a violinist in
the family. There's actually a sea horse in the creek crossing.
We just sort of make it up as we go along,
and it happens.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Twenty six years on the town of Coolan has this
fifteen kilometer stretch of road that's lined with tin horses.
They call it the Tin Horse Highway. There are horses dancing,
playing tennis, wearing dresses, even playing the bagpipes. It is
a spectacle, a feat of forty gallon drum and paint ingenuity.

(02:42):
But did it work? Did the people come?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Oh? Yeah, people come this way again just so the
kids can see the tin Horse Highways on the way
to Perth.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
We've got people that travel down here just to look
at the Tin Horse Highway.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
From touring the Tin Horse Highway or whatever your journey.
Ample is the fuel that gets you there. Make sure
you follow our adventures for free in your favorite podcast app.
I'm Amanda Keller and this is brain Fuel.