ContributorCommunity HistoryDescriptionJarrah table made from remnant pieces of the plank road that is now Oceanic Drive. The Perth Road Board was instrumental in the emerging governance of the City of Stirling, formerly the Shire of Perth. Mae Lancaster McSwain remembers in 1910 her parents bringing her and her sister to live in City Beach and they travelled on the old plank road. Mae states "One day some men were putting in a footpath and they dug up the old plank road. I paid the men 10 shillings for some of the planks and we took one to Wittakers to have it planed and treated. A good friend of mine, the late Jim Paterson (the tennis player) from Cottesloe made it into a coffee table for me, the length of the plank."Date createdc1940Height (mm)380Width (mm)1190Depth (mm)300MaterialsJarrah woodHistorical details
Harry Morris
“The City Beach plank road was referred to as the Switchback. It didn’t switch the way the railway line at Kalamunda switched but it was up and down, up and down. I can remember hitting eighty mile an hour on that road. It was just single track you had to have faith that you didn’t meet anyone coming the other way. When you came over each hill there was a little siding that you could stop and move over. It had been put there for horses and carts. With the coming of motor vehicles people became more impatient and there was just as much road rage in 1930 as there is today, relatively speaking. There were no rules as to which driver would get off. Sometimes you met in between and someone had to back up.”
