Cape Riche is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. T ...

and rural locality in the Great Southern region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

. By road, it is 525 km south-east of

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

and 123 km north-east of Albany Facilities in the locality include a boat launching ramp and a

campground A campsite, also known as a campground or camping pitch, is a place used for overnight stay in an outdoor area. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an area, usually divided into a number of pitches, where people can camp overnight using ten ...

with flushing toilets and showers.

History

Cape Riche was named for

Claude-Antoine-Gaspard Riche Claude-Antoine-Gaspard Riche (20 August 1762 – 5 September 1797) was a naturalist on Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's 1791 expedition in search of the lost ships of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. Cape Riche, on the south coast of Austral ...

, a naturalist on Bruni d'Entrecasteaux'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 navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland ...

aboard the ''

Investigator Investigator may refer to: Occupations Government and law * Detective, a person who investigates crimes, can be a rank and job in a police department, state or federal employee, or a civilian called a private detective * Inspector, a police rank ...

'' 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 for ...

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 4 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 {{unreferenced, date=February 2019 Spongolite is a stone made almost entirely from fossilised sponges. It is light and porous. The silica spicules fossilised with the sponges makes the material hazardous to handle by being highly abrasive. Becau ...

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

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

''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 fathe ...

(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 ''Bossiaea preissii'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south of Western Australia. It is a compact, glabrous shrub with egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, and yellow, red, orange ...

''.

Ludwig Diels Dr. 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 Pr ...

and

Ernst Pritzel Ernst is both a surname and a given name, the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian form of Ernest. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) German botanist known by the author abbreviation "Ernst" * Anton Ernst (1975 ...

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

Image:Cape Riche and Cheyne Island.jpg, Cape Riche and Cheyne Island from nearby Mount Melville

References

{{authority control Towns in Western Australia Great Southern (Western Australia) South coast of Western Australia Whaling stations in Australia