Gwoonwardu Mia - Gascoyne Aboriginal Heritage and Cultural Centre — Attraction in Carnarvon

I have been to a number of indigenous cultural centres around Western Australia, so I was keen to visit Gwoonwardu Mia. The centre is located on your way into town, on Robinson Road, just before the Babbage Island Road turnoff. You can't miss the large building encased by carved steel panels. The entrance however is a little more difficult to locate. The main visitor's car park is to the left of the building, but the entrance is actually tucked around to the right. The centre is open to the public from 9:30am to 3:30pm Monday to Friday (closed Saturday and Sunday).

The entrance is just past the cafe, in the gallery shop. to get through to the interpretive centre you go through the gallery shop out the doors to the ethnobotanical gardens, representing the five local language groups, and then to a smaller side door. The interpretive centre, Burlganyja Wanggaya, is worth the admission fee ($10/adult & $5/children), with impressive interactive displays, such as the Sky Dome, which showcases a timelapse video of a starry sky, with commentary about the ancient art of stargazing for the Aboriginal community, and the exhibit on the incredible giant, burrowing bees. I thoroughly recommend you spend the time listening and watching each of the stories (both good and bad) about the history of Gascoyne Aboriginal peoples - it was captivating.

The gallery shop and the cafe however really don't do the centre justice. They were poorly laid out and weren't that inviting. The staff were almost non-existent and not that helpful at all. Which is a shame as both the gallery and shop have the potential to be an asset to the centre rather than an...

This has been the best cultural centre we have been to and spent a cpl of hours there (we could have spent longer). We have visited many after travelling through the centre of Aus and from Darwin to WA. The staff a very passionate and friendly. We arrived on a Friday morning and were extremely lucky to be invited to participate in a circle discussion with an aboriginal elder from the community. Ray was so talented with his singing and artwork and loved sharing information about his life and culture. I could have spent days learning from him. Thank you Ray for welcoming us to your...

I wish I had visited the cultural centre but it was closed for renovations, including the day we visited Carnarvon - 16 September 2025. There was no indication on the website that the centre was going to be temporarily closed. As a result, I missed a couple of activities which I otherwise would have scheduled had that information been available. I am very disappointed at not being able to visit this supposedly iconic centre and also the disruption and inconvenience to my itinerary caused by the lack of information on your website. If it were possible to give no stars, I...