Cape Riche is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. Th ...

and rural locality in the Great Southern region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. By road, it is 525 km south-east 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 ...

and 123 km north-east of Albany Facilities in the locality include a boat launching ramp and a

campground A campsite, also known as a campground or camping pitch, is a place used for camping, overnight stay in an outdoor area. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an area, usually divided into a number of pitches, where people can camp overnight u ...

with flushing toilets and showers.

History

Cape Riche was named for Claude-Antoine-Gaspard Riche, a naturalist on

Bruni d'Entrecasteaux Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni, chevalier d'Entrecasteaux () (8 November 1737 – 21 July 1793) was a French naval officer, explorer and colonial governor. He is perhaps best known for his exploration of the Australian coast in 1792, while ...

's 1791 expedition who became lost for two days near Esperance. Matthew Flinders aboard the '' Investigator'' charted the area in 1802 as part of his circumnavigation of Australia. George Cheyne, a Scottish immigrant, took up land at Cape Riche in 1836, after arriving in Albany in 1831. He established a trading post which was often visited by American whalers. In about 1848,

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods for us ...

cutters arrived in the area, The Surveyor-General of Western Australia,

John Septimus Roe John Septimus Roe (8 May 1797 – 28 May 1878) was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer, a member of Western Australia's legislative and executive councils for nearly 40 years, but also a participant in t ...

, visited the Cape in October 1848 as part of this 1848–49 expedition and reorganised his supplies while staying with the Cheyne family. He left 4 days later to make his way to the Russell Range. The Cheyne properties were later taken over by the related Moir family. The Cape Riche Homestead, also known as Moirs Property, was designed and built between 1850 and 1860 by Alexander Moir. It comprises a large group of spongolite buildings. Bay whaling activity took place on the coast in the 1870s. In the 1890s the

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

''Grace Darling'', provided supplies and delivered the mail on its monthly run between Albany and Esperance.

Flora and fauna

A number of botanists and explorers conducted plant collections in the area in the mid-19th century including

Ludwig Preiss Johann August Ludwig Preiss (21 November 1811 – 21 May 1883) was a German-born British botanist and zoologist. Early life Preiss was born in Herzberg am Harz. He obtained a doctorate, probably at Hamburg, then emigrated to Western Australia. ...

(1840), James Drummond (1840, 1846–48)

(1848) and

William Henry Harvey William Henry Harvey, FRS FLS (5 February 1811 – 15 May 1866) was an Irish botanist and phycologist who specialised in algae. Biography Harvey was born at Summerville near Limerick, Ireland, in 1811, the youngest of 11 children. His father ...

(1854). Plant species which were formally described based on these collections included Moirs wattle (''Acacia moirii''), sheath cottonhead (''Conostylis vaginata''), tallerack (''Eucalyptus pleurocarpa''), autumn featherflower (''Verticordia harveyi'') and '' Bossiaea preissii''.

Ludwig Diels Dr. Friedrich Ludwig Emil Diels (24 September 1874 – 30 November 1945) was a German botanist. Diels was born in Hamburg, the son of the classical scholar Hermann Alexander Diels. From 1900 to 1902 he traveled together with Ernst Georg Pri ...

and Ernst Pritzel also collected plant material at Cape Riche in 1901. Cape Riche is home to a number of rare flora species including feather-leaved banksia (''Banksia brownii''), Manypeaks rush (''Chordifex arbortivus''), Manypeaks sundew (''Drosera fimbriata'') and coast featherflower (''Verticordia helichrysantha''). The Albany/Cape Riche area is noted as a calving area for southern right whales.

Gallery

Image:Cape Riche and Cheyne Island.jpg, Cape Riche and Cheyne Island from nearby Mount Melville

References

{{authority control Towns in Western Australia Great Southern (Western Australia) South coast of Western Australia Whaling stations in Australia