D'Entrecasteaux National Park is a national park in

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 ...

, south 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 i ...

. The park is named after the French Admiral

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 ...

who was the first European to sight the area and name

Point D'Entrecasteaux Point D'Entrecasteaux is a point on the south coast of Western Australia. The first European sighting was by the Frenchman Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in the 1700s, although there were possible sightings by Dutch navigators from ships such ...

in 1792. The park received 168,497 visitors through 2008–2009.

Description

The park stretches from Black Point in the west to Long Point in the east and extends inland as far as . Black Point is made of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

columns from a lava flow that occurred 135 million years ago. An interesting feature in the park is Yeagarup dune, a mobile long sand dune found to the west of Lake Jasper. The park contains a great variety of scenery, including

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc sh ...

es, sand-dunes, coastal cliffs, coastal

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...

and pockets of karri forest. Rivers such as the

Warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval A ...

, the Donnelly and the Shannon flow through the park and discharge into the waters off-shore. Important large scale

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

s, known as the Blackwater, and lakes such as Lake Jasper and Lake Yeagarup are found within the park boundaries. Broke Inlet is contained within the park boundaries at the eastern end; it is the only inlet in the South West that has not been significantly altered within the catchment area. The

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

basement rocks project through the shallow waters to form small islands in the Inlet. Sandy Island in

Windy Harbour Windy Harbour is a holiday settlement surrounded by D’Entrecasteaux National Park. It is located 27 km south of Northcliffe, on the south coast of Western Australia east of Augusta and west of Nornalup. It lies just east of Point D'E ...

is part of the park; it is an important nesting site for

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s, with up to 300,000 breeding pairs of

flesh-footed shearwater The flesh-footed shearwater (''Ardenna carneipes''; formerly ''Puffinus carneipes'') is a medium-sized shearwater. Its plumage is black. It has pale pinkish feet, and a pale bill with a distinct black tip. Together with the equally light-billed p ...

s, a high proportion of the global population.

Facilities

The park has an entry fee that applies to all visitors. Facilities available to visitors include barbecues, toilets, 4WD tracks, camp sites, disabled access and picnic areas. Canoeing facilities also exist within the park on the Deep River. Rangers regularly patrol the area. The

Bibbulmun Track The Bibbulmun Track is a long-distance walk trail in Western Australia. It runs from Kalamunda in the east of Perth to Albany, and is long. It is managed by government agencies, and has a foundation. It traverses the Darling Range and has i ...

passes through the park area. The outdoor education organisation,

Outward Bound Outward Bound (OB) is an international network of outdoor education organizations that was founded in the United Kingdom by Lawrence Holt and Kurt Hahn in 1941. Today there are organizations, called schools, in over 35 countries which are att ...

, operate within the park taking school groups on hiking expeditions. Image:D'Entrecasteaux2.JPG, Vegetated Dune, D'Entrecasteaux National Park Image:Chatham Island WA.jpg,

Chatham Island Chatham Island ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) is by far the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway bet ...

from Long Point in D'Entrecasteaux National Park

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:D'entrecasteaux National Park National parks of Western Australia Protected areas established in 1980 1980 establishments in Australia Warren bioregion

Description

Facilities

See also

References