Page 327 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Australia

WESTERN A USTR ALIA  325

NORTH OF PERTH

AND THE KIMBERLEY

Western Australia covers one-third of Australia, and visitors to the
area north of Perth start to get a feel for just how big the state
really is. The region has many treasures: Ningaloo Reef and
the Pinnacles rock formations; the Kimberley gorges; and a
host of national parks, including the amazing Bungle Bungles.
The first people to set foot on the set up cattle and sheep stations
Australian land mass, the Aborigines, did in a swathe from Derby to
so some 55,000 years ago in the north of Wyndham. Gold was struck in 1885
Western Australia. This area is rich in at Halls Creek, and the northern part
Aboriginal petroglyphs, and some are of the state was finally on the map. In
thought to be more than 20,000 years the 1960s, mining came to prominence
old. The north of Western Australia was again with the discovery of such minerals
also the site of the first European landing as iron ore, nickel and oil, particularly in
in 1616 (see p53). In 1688, English explorer the Pilbara region.
William Dampier charted the area around Today, the region is popular with tourists
the Dampier Peninsula and, on a later who want to see and experience the
voyage, discovered Shark Bay and the natural beauty that Western Australia has
area around Broome. to offer (see p540). Its climate varies from
In the 1840s, the Benedictines set up Mediterranean-style just north of Perth to
a mission in New Norcia and, by the the tropical wet and dry pattern of the far
1860s, settlements had sprung up along north. Wildlife includes endangered species
the coast, most significantly at Cossack, such as the dugongs of Shark Bay. Even
where a pearling industry attracted isolated spots, such as the Kimberley and
immigrants from Japan, China and the resorts of Coral Bay and Broome, are
Indonesia. In the 1880s, pastoralists receiving more visitors every year.

The daily ritual of feeding wild dolphins at Monkey Mia beach
Stromatolites in Hamelin Pool, part of Shark Bay Marine Park