Waychinicup National Park: the River

Rivers with fresh water are rare in Western Australia. And along the length of the west coast there is only one that in its natural state was never blocked by a sandbar. The Waychinicup. It is less than 20kms long, alas...

The above photo is interesting because it is an old sealers' oven, built about 1800 --  prior to white settlement of the western half of Australia. Apparently constructed as a semi-permanent structure by visiting sealers of diverse nationalities to bake bread.

This southern coast was a surprisingly busy place around this period -- the nearby Two People's Bay was named in 1803 when American whaling ship and a French ship found themselves in a bay at the same time...