Cape Arid National Park is a national park in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 (Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

), 731 kilometres (454 mi) south east of Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

. The park is situated 120 kilometres (75 mi) east of Esperance

Esperance, Western Australia

Esperance is a large town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located on the Southern Ocean coastline approximately east-southeast of the state capital, Perth. The shire of Esperance is home to 9,536 people as of the 2006 census, its major industries are tourism, agriculture,...

 and lies on shore from the eastern end of the Recherche Archipelago. The bay at its western end is Duke of Orleans Bay, and the bay at the eastern side is Israelite Bay

Israelite Bay, Western Australia

Israelite Bay is a bay and locality at Location on the south coast of Western Australia - frequently mentioned in Bureau of Meteorology weather reports as a geographical marker - it does not have a climate record....

.

Its coastline is defined by Cape Arid, a bay called Sandy bight and further east Cape Pasley.

History

The first European to discover the area was the French Admiral Bruni D'Entrecasteaux

Bruni d'Entrecasteaux

Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux was a French navigator who explored the Australian coast in 1792 while seeking traces of the lost expedition of La Pérouse....

 in 1792 and he named it Cap Arride; Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders

Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...

 anglicized the name in 1892 and the park took its name from this feature.

Pioneer graziers arrived in the area in the 1870s and the ruins of homesteads, dams and buildings as well as gravesites can be found near Pine Hill and Thomas Fishery.

Geography

The area is composed of sandy beaches and rocky headlands to the south with low granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 hills extending to the north to join the jagged Russell Range that is primarily composd of pre-cambrian quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

. The highest point of the park is Tower Peak, located within the Range, which reaches a height of 594 metres (1,949 ft).
The eastern boundary of the park joins the western side of Nuytsland Nature Reserve

Nuytsland Nature Reserve

Nuytsland Nature Reserve is a protected area of Western Australia in the far south eastern part of the state.Nominally located at 32° 18' S 125° 52' E, it has an area of 6,253.44 km², and takes in over 500 kilometers of coastline from Cape Pasley to Red Rocks Point. It was gazetted in 1969...

. Sand-plains that are rich in flora surround the hill areas.

Fauna

A wide variety of habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 exists within the park which supports a wide variety of flora and fauna. The park is an important site for the bird life in Western Australia. It is home to over 160 species of birds including some that are endangered and restricted. Some of the birds found in the park include: the Western Ground Parrot

Western Ground Parrot

The Western Ground Parrot is an endangered species of parrot endemic to Western Australia and is a close relative of the Eastern Ground Parrot and the somewhat more distantly related and mysterious Night Parrot...

, the Australasian bittern

Australasian Bittern

The Australasian Bittern , also known as the Brown Bittern, is found in south-western and south-eastern Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Ouvea. Populations in Australia and New Zealand have declined in the 20th century.It is a large bittern, patterned and streaked brown, buff...

, Carnaby's Cockatoo and Cape Barren Geese

Cape Barren Goose

The Cape Barren Goose is a large goose resident in southern Australia. The species is named for Cape Barren Island, where specimens were first sighted by European explorers.-Taxonomy:...

.

Fauna that can be found include the Western Brush Wallaby

Western Brush Wallaby

The Western Brush Wallaby , also known as the Black-gloved Wallaby, is a species of wallaby found in southwestern Western Australia. The main threat towards it seems to be predation by the introduced Red Fox...

, quenda, the southern bush rat

Bush Rat

The bush rat is a small Australian nocturnal animal. It is an omnivore. It is one of the most common species of rats and is found in many heathland areas of Victoria and NSW...

, many small marsupial

Marsupial

Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by giving birth to relatively undeveloped young. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, with the remaining 100 found in the Americas, primarily in South America, but with thirteen in Central...

 predators and a variety of reptile

Reptile

Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...

s and amphibian

Amphibian

Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...

s.

A rare and primitive species of ant

Ant

Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

 of the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Nothomyrmecia is thought to inhabit the area.

Flora

Vegetation found within the park is mostly on young dune systems that have large communities of coastal heath with smaller systems of Yate

Eucalyptus cornuta

Eucalyptus cornuta, commonly known as Yate, is a tree which occurs in an area between Busselton and Albany in Western Australia....

, Banksia

Banksia

Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads. When it comes to size, banksias range from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up...

, Paperbark and Mallee

Mallee (habit)

Mallee is the growth habit of certain eucalypt species that grow with multiple stems springing from an underground lignotuber, usually to a height of no more than ten metres...

.
Species of orchid and fern

Fern

A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...

s exist near Mount Ragged including a small population of the sticky-tail flower (Anthocersis viscosa).

Trails

Many walk trails can be found in the park including the Len Otte Nature Trail, Tagon Coastal Trail, Boolenup Walk Trail and walks up both Mount Ragged and Mount Arid. The most accessible campsite is at Thomas River

Thomas River

The Thomas River is a river in the Gascoyne of Western Australia.The headwaters of the Landor rise South of Double Peak and flows West until it merges with the Gascoyne River of which it is a tributary...

 with conventional drive access, barbecue

Barbecue

Barbecue or barbeque , used chiefly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of...

s, toilets and water tanks. Other campsites at Mount Ragged, Poison Creek and Deal Creek are only accessible by 4WD.