Collie Mural Trail Tours - Street Art Gallery

Collie Mural Trail Experiences

Street Art Gallery

Where 40 years of dreaming, 10 years of a local gallery, and 5 years of mural magic connects ancient forests and endless trails.

The Collie River Valley has transformed into one of Western Australia's most exciting award-winning outdoor art galleries, where the natural beauty of Wellington National Park meets breathtaking contemporary street art. For Alison at Forest Explorers who participated in painting Bones #8 on the Collie Mural Trail this was a prime opportunity to share her deep passion and appreciation of heritage & culture as much as natures diversity, the Collie Mural Trail tours offer an extraordinary fusion of art, history, and landscape.

Picture this: You're standing at the base of the Wellington Dam wall, surrounded by towering Jarrah & Marri Forest, the scent of warm Eucalyptus leaves in the air. Then you look up. Stretching across 8,000 square metres of concrete—the equivalent of more than half a football field—is the world's largest dam mural aptly named “Reflections' by renowned Australian artist Guido Van Helten, but this isn't just about size—it's about country soul.

Van Helten spent four months camping at Potters Gorge in the Wellington National Park while creating the mural with a small team. His dedication to understanding the Collie community before putting airbrushed paint to concrete, sets this work apart from typical large-scale murals.

The Stories on the Wall

The Dam Mural features six images which were bathed in water to create rolled edges showing age or the relationship with water ‘Reflections’. Some of the photos where sourced from the Local Studies Jan Wallace Archival rooms, where photographs and articles of Collie’s heritage are bountiful: From left to right as you face the masterpiece are two migrant dam wall workers, dressed in work cloths of the era, singlets and trousers. Next are the Cain children who reside near the first Coal discovery site in Allanson or then named the 21mile.The six Aboriginal children on a picnic along the Collie River are from Roelands Mission, they are playing in the water and this takes centre stage maybe because the water flows through to their childhood. On a group Mural Tour one participant shared her thoughts as saying, “the girl is holding a Box Brownie Camera looking into the future”. Strangers can give you their soul on tour. The young boy holding a fish which is perhaps a local Black Bream or 1860s introduced European /Asian Red Fin Perch. The couple on the far right where local Bibbulmun people Jenny and Billy a connection to the Collie River and her far reaches.  

Add in over 30 vibrant murals stretching from Wellington Dam through Collie town, creating a 35km trail that blends country driving with urban discovery.

Each mural tour experience shares a piece of Collie's story— themed on Indigenous heritage to natural beauty.

Forest Explorers ninety-minute town tour commences across the Coal railway tracks from the Collie Art Gallery: 40 Years in the Making

Before the murals, came the gallery. The Collie Art Gallery on Throssell Street celebrated 10 years in 2025, but the dream began decades earlier.

Jan Wallace started lobbying the Collie Shire Council in the 1970s for a home for the town's art collection—legend has it she brought her baby in a bassinet to Council meetings. That baby was in his 40s when the gallery finally opened in 2015!

Thanks to remarkable community support, including half a million dollars from Collie Community Bank, the town built the first fit-for-purpose A-class gallery in WA since the Art Gallery of WA opened in 1979. The gallery houses work by Norman Lindsay, Guy Grey-Smith, Claude Hotchin and Elizabeth Durack. Jan studied Art at Collie and Bunbury TAFE, made storage space & supported the book publication of 100 years of Collie Coal/recording history with Stan Cull, Collie Museums founder all the while being a wife and mother of five.

This community perseverance laid the foundation for everything that followed—the Collie Art Gallery offers exhibitions, workshops, gifts shops and the prestigious annual Collie Art Prize. We are very proud to share our Collie Mural Trail and a thriving cultural tourism scene that complements the community & the natural beauty.

With Forest Explorers far more is shared to this story and it’s well worth a few days exploring Collie two hours south of Perth, Western Australia.

"Forty years of dreaming, ten years of Art Gallery excellence, five years of Mural magic. And every day, new visitors and new residence discover what makes this place special—where ancient forests meet contemporary art, and community dreams become reality.

Photo of Mega Mural Wellington Dam Wall Collie River, Western Australia by Jarrad Seng