Blackboy Hill, Military memorial in Greenmount, Australia
Blackboy Hill is a military memorial in Greenmount, Western Australia, marking the site of training camps used during both World Wars. The grounds feature a central monument and a series of interpretive panels that explain the role this land played in preparing soldiers for service.
The land was first used in 1914 as a training ground for soldiers heading to war, and it served the same purpose again during the Second World War. After the wars ended, the site was gradually turned into a memorial to honor those who had passed through it.
The name Blackboy Hill comes from a local plant, the Xanthorrhoea, commonly called blackboy, which once grew across this land. Today the site is visited as a place of remembrance, where plaques and monuments invite people to walk slowly and read about those who trained here.
The memorial is easy to walk around, and reading all the panels and monuments takes some time, so allow at least an hour. Visiting on a weekday rather than a weekend means fewer other visitors and more space to move at your own pace.
Excavations at the site turned up objects from a hospital that operated here during the 1919 flu pandemic, a chapter that most visitors do not expect to find at a military memorial. These finds show that the land was used for healing as well as for training.
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