New Horsepower Highway display promotes mental health awareness in rural communities

A new tractor display promoting mental health awareness was opened on the ever-expanding Horsepower Highway on Friday.

About 60 guests, including councillors, campers and supporters of the trail project, attended the unveiling of Lumpy, The Blue Tractor.

It is the 21st tractor on the highway and is positioned at the intersection of North Stirling Road and Formby Road South, across from Diesel.

The tractor was donated to the project by Garry and Nola Bungey of Highdenup Farms.

Horsepower Highway project manager Cassandra Beeck said it was donated to honour a cousin who lost their life to suicide.

“They donated this as a way or promoting mental health awareness for men in the country,” she said.

Its restoration was undertaken by Wilson Wrecking before artists Glend Hegedus and Brad Lucas applied the finishing touches so it could be launched as part of Mental Health Week.

Lincolns Accountants came on board to support the restoration.

Planning for more installations on the highway is already well progressed.

Ms Beeck said Blaze, a tractor honouring the bush fire brigades that battled the Stirling Range fires of 2019-20, was nearly ready to be launched.

“The North Stirling Pallinup Natural Resources Group are supporting another one which will be pretty speccy and will launch some time next year,” she said.

“We’re working with another organisation, Ride for Youth, who will be putting one on the Broomhill side of the highway.

“They’re the projects we have in the pipeline for the next six to eight months.”

She said she was pleased to see the highway continue to grow as a tribute to the rich heritage of the region’s rural communities.

“We have unique perspectives to share with people, but also there is this great sense of belonging because all of these community groups are coming together to contribute,” she said.

“It’s not about the tractors — it’s about the stories from rural life, it’s about the resilience of rural people, it’s about the history of our families and rural culture.

“The Horsepower Highway itself is an avenue to share these stories on the way to this area’s most magnificent natural resource which is the Stirling Range.”