Cape Riche is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

in the Great Southern region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. By road, it is south-east of

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

and north-east of Albany. It is part of the locality of Wellstead and is south of the townsite. Facilities in the area include a boat launching ramp and a

campground Campsite, campground, and camping pitch are all related terms regarding a place used for camping (an overnight stay in an outdoor area). The usage differs between British English and American English. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an ...

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 Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator who served as the Governor of Isle de France (Mauritius), governor of Isle de Fran ...

's 1791 expedition who became lost for two days near Esperance.

Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer, navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then ...

aboard '' 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. Sanda ...

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 ...

, 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 four 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 Spongolite (also spelled either spongillite or spongiolite) is a sediment or sedimentary rock composed principally of the remains of largely articulated fossils of rigid-bodied siliceous sponges. In contrast, spiculite is either sediment or sedi ...

buildings. Bay whaling activity took place on the coast in the 1870s. In the 1890s the

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

''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 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 Pritzel thro ...

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 whale The southern right whale (''Eubalaena australis'') is a baleen whale, one of three species classified as right whales belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena''. Southern right whales inhabit oceans south of the Equator, between the latitudes of 20� ...

Gallery

References

{{authority control City of Albany, Western Australia Headlands of Western Australia Whaling stations in Australia