Gooseberry Hill is a suburb of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia, located within the City of Kalamunda. It is the site of Gooseberry Hill National Park. It is located at the highest point south of the departure of the

Helena River The Helena River is a tributary of the Swan River in Western Australia. The river rises in country east of Mount Dale and flows north-west to Mundaring Weir, where it is dammed. It then flows west until it reaches the Darling Scarp. It passes ...

from the

Darling Scarp The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to th ...

on to the

Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geol ...

. It is often associated with the railway formation of the

Kalamunda Zig Zag The Kalamunda Zig Zag was a Zig zag (railway), zig zag rail line that was part of the Upper Darling Range Railway line in Western Australia, opening in July 1891 and closing in July 1949. Most of it was converted to a public road in 1952, part o ...

and the northernmost high feature of

Statham's Quarry Statham's Quarry (also known as Darling Range Quarry, and then Perth City Council's Darling Range Quarry after 1920) is the site of a quarry on the Darling Scarp on the southern side of the entrance of the Helena River valley on to the Swan Coas ...

, which lie on the north west of the locality within national park land. In 1861, Benjamin Robins purchased of land in the area. In 1878 surveyor Henry Samuel Ranford recorded the name of the eponymous hill as "Gooseberry Hill" ; that name, derived from the presence of cape gooseberries in the area, referred to the Kalamunda area generally in the late 19th century. The townsite was officially gazetted on 8 June 1959. Gooseberry Hill was the location of a war-time tragedy when a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

C-47 Skytrain The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota (Royal Air Force, RAF, Royal Australian Air Force, RAAF, Royal Canadian Air Force, RCAF, Royal New Zealand Air Force, RNZAF, and South African Air Force, SAAF designation) is a airlift, military transport ai ...

(

DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

) plane crashed in heavy fog on 19 April 1945 after taking off from Guildford Airport (later

Perth Airport Perth Airport is an international, domestic and general aviation airport serving Perth, the capital city of Western Australia. It is the fourth busiest airport in Australia measured by passenger movements and falls within the boundaries of ...

). All of the ten US servicemen and three US Red Cross women on board were killed. The plane crashed between Gooseberry Hill Road and Lansdown Road, from the end of the take-off runway, having travelled in an almost straight course to the point of impact. The suburb contains two schools, Gooseberry Hill Primary School, a government school established in 1972, and Mary's Mount Primary School, a Catholic school established in 1921.

Transport

Transperth Transperth is the brand name of the public transport system serving the city and suburban areas of Perth, the state capital of Western Australia. It is managed by the Public Transport Authority (PTA), a state government organisation. Train op ...

bus routes serving the suburb are: * Route 274, a local service operating only once a day (twice on school days) from the settlement to the northeast of Railway Road to

Kalamunda bus station Kalamunda bus station is a Transperth bus station located next to the Kalamunda Central shopping centre in Kalamunda, Western Australia. It has four stands and is served by eight Transperth routes operated by Path Transit and Swan Transit S ...

via Davies Crescent. * Route 275 between

High Wycombe railway station High Wycombe railway station is a railway station in the town of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. The station is on the Chiltern Main Line between and stations. It is served by Chiltern Railways. History The original terminus station ...

and Walliston via

along

Kalamunda Road Kalamunda Road is a minor arterial road linking the historic suburb of South Guildford with the Darling Scarp suburb of Kalamunda, in Perth, Western Australia. It serves as a major access road for Perth Airport, and provides the foothills su ...

in the southwestern part of the suburb. * Route 276 between

and

on Gooseberry Hill Road in the centre of the suburb. * Route 307 between

and Midland Station on Gooseberry Hill Road. This route also travels along Ridge Hill Road in the northwest of the suburb, however, there are no stops on this section.

References

{{City of Kalamunda suburbs Suburbs of Perth, Western Australia Suburbs in the City of Kalamunda