|
|
The Old
Pearler Restaurant
|
Denham (including Nanga)
Main township for travellers
wanting to visit Monkey Mia and
Shark Bay
This should be read in
conjunction with the entry on
Shark Bay.
Denham is both the western
most town in Australia (at the
113°32" East meridian of
longitude) and the gateway to
Monkey Mia with its friendly
dolphins. Located on the western
coast of the Peron Peninsula it
is 23 km southwest of the
dolphins and 831 km north of
Perth.
The area was the first part
of the Australian mainland
discovered by European sailors
(see Cape Inscription for a
detailed history of the Dutch
exploration of the area). After
the Dutch came William Dampier
who wrote in his successful book
A Voyage to New Holland that it
'Twas the 7th of August when we
came into Shark's Bay; in which
we Anchor'd at three several
Places, and stay'd at the first
of them (on the W. side of the
Bay) till the 11th. During which
time we searched about, as I
said, for fresh Water, digging
Wells, but to no purpose.'
Dampier wasn't experiencing a
drought year. Even today the
area around Shark Bay receives
such a low rainfall that the
fresh water at Denham comes from
a desalination plant. There are
strict controls on the
consumption of water in the town
with threats that excessive use
of fresh water will incur
penalties. The penalty: to pay
the full price for the
desalination.
After Dampier came the
Frenchmen Freycinet, Hamelin and
Baudin who passed through the
area in the early 1800s. They
discovered the Geographe Channel
which was named after Baudin's
ship and, over the period from
1801-1818 visited the area three
times. The dryness of the
landscape and the obvious lack
of water did little to create
any real French enthusiasm for
the region. The coast remained
uninhabited by Europeans until
the mid-nineteenth century. In
1858 Shark Bay was chartered by
Captain H.M. Denham - the town
is named in his honour.
Around this time F.L. Von
Bibra settled on Dirk Hartog
Island and convicts briefly came
to the area to dig guano (bird
droppings). It was as a result
of this that Lieutenant Helpman,
who had been sent to the area to
sort out the issue of convicts
being used to dig guano,
discovered the pearl shells
which abounded in the bay.
In his book on Broome, Port
of Pearls, Hugh Edwards writes
of Denham 'The first pearls to
be found in Western Australia
were in Shark Bay in 1854 by a
Lieutenant Helpman known as the
'Admiral of the Swan River
Navy'.
'Excited by finding dense
beds of the small oyster
Pinctada radiata he applied for
the sole concession to work the
Shark Bay pearl beds.
'This was initially agreed to
but a public outcry made the
beds open to everyone. The
technique of pearling had none
of the romance and danger which
was later associated with the
pearling fleets which operated
out of Broome. The pearl shells
were dredged and put on the
beach in what were called
'pogey-tubs' and left to rot.
Eventually the shells fell open
and the pearls, if there were
any, dropped out. The smell of
the 'pogey-tubs' was horrific.
The experiment was short lived
as the pearl beds were
overfished early. The only
interesting consequence was that
Denham's streets achieved the
unique distinction of being
paved with pearl shells. In an
extraordinary act of vandalism
the local roads board put
bitumen over the pearl shells in
the 1960s thus destroying what
could have been a remarkable
tourist attraction.'
|
|
Feeding
the dolphins at Monkey
Mia near Denham
|
Today the town survives on
the influx of tourists who come
to the area to see the dolphins.
With only a single caravan
park-motel-backpacker
destination at Monkey Mia people
requiring other accommodation
stay at either Denham or Nanga
or take bus trips from
Carnarvon.
But this sense of Denham as a
stopover is to undervalue the
beauty of the township. It has
an almost Mediterranean feel
about it with a small and
beautiful beach and a jetty from
which fishing and boating are
popular activities.
Things to see:
![[Top of page]](smlArrow.gif)
|
|
Shell
Beach near Denham
|
Interesting Buildings and
destinations
Most of the buildings in the
town are of no particular
interest with St Andrews Church
(on the corner of Hughes and
Brockman Streets) and The Old
Pearlers Restaurant (on the
waterfront at Durlacher Street
and Knight Terrace) being
notable exceptions. Both have
been built from coquina shell
block - a shell aggregate (a
kind of shell stone) which comes
from Shell Beach (see Shark Bay)
near the town.
In Denham's Pioneer Park is a
slab of rock marked 'Herald;
Denham; 1858' which was
inscribed at Eagle Bluff (see
Shark Bay) by Captain Denham
during his survey in 1858.
48 km south of Denham is
Nanga Station, a huge sheep
station which has embraced the
growing tourism in the region by
providing caravan sites as well
as bunkhouse, cabin, home unit
and motel accommodation, a
restaurant, liquor store and
shop.
