ISLAND ADVENTURE
AFTER SAILING beside the treacherous Zuytdorp Cliffs and the rugged west coast, Dirk Hartog anchored in Turtle Bay, a sublime anchorage sheltered from the southern swells. Here he climbed the dunes to consider the view from the top of the cape; to the north and east he saw only the vast open ocean and must have assumed he had reached the western edge of the great South Land, or that he was on an island.
Standing on the same point as Dirk Hartog some 400 years later, on an extremely hot and clear day, I peered east and caught the faintest glimpse of a strip of orange floating on the horizon. Having been to Cape Peron, I knew this mirage on the ocean was orange dunes, some 40km away. If Dirk Hartog had glimpsed this phenomenon all those years ago, I wonder if he would have set sail to explore Shark Bay to the east. Instead, after three days, he left a plate with an inscription on what is now aptly known as Cape Inscription, and left for Batavia.
Dirk Hartog Island (DHI) is a finger of land that protects Shark Bay. The island is 76km long and averages about 11km wide, but just 3km wide at it’s narrowest point. It’s the largest island in Western Australia,
