Mindarie

Mindarie is an outer coastal suburb of Perth, Western Australia, 36 kilometres north of the Perth CBD. Select MORE for information on the suburb, its neighbourhood and history.

The heart of the suburb is the Mindarie Marina, which is one of the largest man-made marina resorts in the state.

It is formally bounded by Quinns Road, Marmion Avenue and the Indian Ocean. The suburbs of Clarkson and Merriwa lie to the east, and Quinns Rocks lies to the north. South of Mindarie is the uninhabited locality of Tamala Park.

Large swathes of natural bushland and coastline are preserved in various parks throughout the suburb, including Claytons Beach, Rosslare Park, Kinsale Park and the North and South Mindarie Foreshores. The foreshore reserves contain large Quindalup dunes and rich vegetation.

Mindarie is part of the City of Wanneroo local government area and sits within the City’s Established Coastal Place Management Area.

More than 8,000 people currently live in the combined Mindarie and Tamala Park suburbs, which are expected to grow to 9,500 people over the next 20 years.

Several shops, restaurants and schools are now dispersed throughout the rest of the area, which is primarily residential in character. A number of large bushland reserves and parks preserve Mindarie's previously natural state, such as its large coastal dunes.

This suburb is named after Mindarie Lake, an Aboriginal name first recorded by Alexander Forrest in 1874. The suburb was to have been named Clarkson prior to development, but the two names were rearranged and approved on 6 May 1985.

The Aboriginal meaning for the name is possibly "the place near which held a ceremony" or "green water". The Mooro group of Noongar were said to be familiar with Mindarie, including Waukolup Hill in neighbouring Tamala Park, but no Mooro settlements were ever formally established in the area.

After John Butler's initial expedition to Wanneroo in 1835, the first permanent European settler was sheep-farmer Bernard Clarkson, who first acquired a pastoral lease in 1888 of 13,000 acres in the areas comprising modern-day Mindarie, Clarkson, Quinns Rocks and Merriwa. The leases were known as the Mindarie Pastoral Company, and the lands were primarily used for sheep-herding by subsequent generations of the Clarkson family.

Other early settlers, Henry Cooper and his brothers, built two lime kilns at Mindarie in 1932 after the closure of their quarries in Wembley. The Cooper family produced and sold treated limestone in Perth and Fremantle as the Quinns Rocks Lime Stone Company, and were some of the first permanent residents of the nearby Quinns Rocks townsite.

The kilns provided work for up to thirty-two labourers, who settled in Mindarie in makeshift jarrah shacks, and are commonly held as a symbol of the diversification of industry brought on by the Great Depression at the time.

The Coopers ceased lime-burning operations in 1948 after exhausting good quality limestone supplies in the area. The kilns underwent restoration in 2001 and are preserved today in the Coopers Park bushland reserve in Mindarie.

After the closure of the lime kilns, John Clarkson sold the Mindarie Pastoral Company leases in 1952, and the area remained unpopulated and unused until 1981, when Smith Corporation purchased 316 hectares of land there for $5.5 million.

In July 1984, the company announced plans to develop the land into "Mindarie Keys", a $28 million marina and resort complex designed by James Christou & Partners, to be ready in time for the 1987 America's Cup in Fremantle. The Mindarie Keys marina was finally completed and opened to the public a year later, at a total cost of $34 million.

The suburb was formally established in 1988 with the construction of the Mindarie Marina and hotel.

(Historic information courtesy of Wanneroo Community History Centre)

Area: 4.6 km2 (1.8 sq mi) Population: 8,094 (2021 estimate from 2016 Census for the combined Mindarie and Tamala Park suburbs) Local Government Area: City of Wanneroo Phone: 08 9405 5000 Email: enquiries@wanneroo.wa.gov.au