Kondinin, Western Australia

Kondinin is a town located in the Eastern Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, 279km east of the state capital, Perth via the Brookton Highway and State Route 40 between Corrigin and Hyden. It is the main town in the Shire of Kondinin. At the 2006 census, Kondinin had a population of 311.HistoryThe first European known to have visited the Kondinin area was Captain John Septimus Roe, Surveyor General of the Swan River Colony on his 1848–1849 expedition to examine the south coast. He encountered a group of Aborigines 55km east of Nalyaring (near Brookton) who guided the expedition party to several water sources before leaving the party at Yeerakine (just south-east of Kondinin) as this was the limit of their territory. The lake and well nearby came to be known as Kondinin, although the meaning is unknown.In the early years, settlers occasionally encountered groups of Aborigines hunting possums. Although artifacts such as grinding stones and stone choppers have been found in the district, no signs of permanent occupation were found by early settlers other than the mia-mias built by "Europeanised" Aboriginal shepherds from Narrogin in the employ of Michael Brown.