The Great Australian Bight

Fringed by towering limestone cliffs at the edge of the Nullarbor Plain, the pristine waters of the Great Australian Bight are well-worth the trip

The Great Australian Bight is a large oceanic embayment off Australia’s central southern coastline, extending 1160km from Cape Catastrophe on the Eyre Peninsula, SA, to Cape Pasley east of Esperance, WA. Covering an area of almost 46,000sqkm, the Bight overlies a very wide continental shelf to depths ranging from 15–6000m and is considered part of the Southern Ocean. 

A remarkable feature of the Bight is the limestone rampart of the Bunda Cliffs that rise sheer from the ocean to heights up to 120m. Arrayed for nearly 200km along the South Australian coast to the Western Australian border, they form the longest uninterrupted line of sea cliffs in the world. The cliffs mark the edge of the vast Nullarbor Plain, an arid relic of an ancient seabed deposited some 65 million years ago.

The Bight’s pristine marine environment supports great biodiversity and provides crucial habitats for endangered southern right whales and colonies of threatened Australian sea-lions. State and Commonwealth marine parks encompass large parts of the Bight, while the entire Nullarbor Plain in South Australia is covered by conservation areas that protect unique plants and animals that have adapted to its harsh conditions.

Streaky Bay (300km north-west of Port Lincoln)

The picturesque town of Streaky Bay occupies the southern end of Blanche Port, an enclosed inlet that opens into Streaky Bay proper, the only safe deepwater harbour between Port Lincoln and Albany, WA. Inland, the surrounding district is a patchwork landscape of pastoral holdings, interspersed with large areas of native scrub, sand dunes and salt lakes.

With a population of around 1500, the town is the business hub and service centre for local wheat farmers, a significant commercial fishing and lobster industry, and aquaculture in oysters and abalone. Holidaymakers are attracted by the superb coastal scenery and recreational fishing targeting snapper, whiting and salmon. Other popular activities include surfing, snorkelling and scuba diving, with charter cruises venturing to the nearby islands.

Smoky Bay (73km north of Streaky Bay)

The holiday town of Smoky Bay nestles in a north-west facing bay, shielded from the ocean swells by a projection of land that leads to Point Brown. The bay’s calm waters contain shallow patches of seagrass, sandflats, and mudflats, riven by slightly deeper channels accessed by boats. The bay is fringed by mangroves in the south and coastal sand dune vegetation in the north, while the town itself lies at the end of a long, sandy beach that ends at the historic jetty and a boat ramp tucked behind a sea wall. 

Once used as a port for local grain farmers, the town of some 200 residents now serves a thriving aquaculture industry that occupies 165ha of bay waters, producing oysters as highly regarded as those from Coffin Bay further south. As a tourist destination Smoky Bay is popular for its recreational fishing, swimming, and snorkelling.

Nuyts Archipelago Marine Park

Offshore from Smoky Bay lies the Nuyts Archipelago Marine Park (NAMP). At nearly 4,000sqkm, the NAMP is South Australia’s largest marine park, extending from Point Brown to Nuyts Reef near Fowlers Bay, 170km to the west. It overlays several other protected areas including the Nuyts Archipelago and the Isles of St Francis. The park, reef and archipelago bear the name of Pieter Nuyts, a high-ranking official of the Dutch East India Company who accompanied François Thijssen on his exploration of this southern coastline in 1627.

The NAMP contains a complex network of islands, shallow bays and estuaries inhabited by a rich diversity of birds and marine animals. As well as a haven for rare and endangered wildlife, the park provides important nursery and feeding grounds for southern right whales, Australian sea lions, and New Zealand fur seals. The marine park also supports an aquaculture industry based mainly on Pacific oysters, and five commercial fisheries producing abalone, prawns, scalefish, and rock lobsters. 

Commonwealth Marine Parks

Beyond the seaward boundaries of the NAMP lie the Western Eyre and Murat Marine Parks, which form part of the Commonwealth South-west Marine Parks Network. 

Located 86km south-west of Ceduna, the Murat Marine Park covers 938sqkm of continental shelf to depths between 15–70m. The shelf’s soft-sediment seafloor is inhabited by some of the most diverse invertebrate communities in the world, while the park’s nutrient-rich waters contain plankton ‘hotspots’ that sustain aggregations of small pelagic fish, marine mammals, sharks, and seabirds.

Abutting the NAMP, the Western Eyre Marine Park stretches southward for nearly 58,000sqkm to the edge of Australia’s exclusive economic zone, where the ocean floor lies at more than 6000m. The shelf break at this eastern end of the Great Australian Bight is incised by numerous, steep-sided canyons, which funnel deep-sea currents of nutrient-rich water from the abyssal plain onto the shelf. Here, seasonal ‘pulses’ of plankton attract krill, squid and small fish, and a succession of predators that include southern bluefin tuna, barracoota, sharks, dolphins, orcas, and toothed whales.

Ceduna (40km north-west of Smoky Bay)

The attractive town of Ceduna, and the nearby port of Thevenard, are located on the scenic shore of Murat Bay, which is part of the larger Denial Bay. Known as the eastern gateway to the Nullarbor Plain, Ceduna is the last town of any significance until Norseman, WA, 1200km to the west, and is the principal service hub for South Australia’s far western coastal region. The commercial district fronts a picturesque foreshore that wraps around the south end of the bay in a sandy arc lined with Norfolk Island pines. 

Thevenard is South Australia’s busiest regional port, a deep-sea facility for freighters exporting regional products, such as grain, gypsum, mineral sands, and salt. It is also the home port for a commercial fishing fleet renowned for quality whiting, snapper, prawns, and lobsters.

The town is recognised as a premier fishing location and recreational anglers are well catered for with a couple of jetties and boat ramps near town and at the port. Murat Bay is generally safe for small vessels, with prevailing winds from the west and onshore southerlies strengthening during the day. The local catch commonly includes salmon, trevally, mulloway, sweep, and the highly prized King George whiting. The vibrant local aquaculture industry is celebrated in the annual ‘Oysterfest’, which attracts over 6000 patrons. 

Fowlers Bay (130km west of Ceduna)

The village of Fowlers Bay lies on the shore of a bay with the same name and is protected by Point Fowler from prevailing south-westerly winds and ocean swells. However, large sand dunes dominate the neck of the Point and are being driven relentlessly northward, gradually engulfing some of the older parts of the settlement and one end of its main street. 

The town is surrounded by the Fowlers Bay Conservation Park (8766ha) which conserves a hinterland of native coastal vegetation and a spectacular coastline studded with rocky limestone outcrops, sheltered bays and long, sandy beaches. Ospreys and white-bellied sea-eagles roost among the high cliffs and Australian sea-lions haul out on exposed intertidal platforms. Offshore, Nuyts Reef supports a sea lion colony and provides breeding habitats for seabirds.

Though little more than a jetty, a few houses, and some restored historic buildings, the town is a popular destination for recreational fishing, and one of the best places along the Bight to experience Southern right whales at close quarters. During their annual migration (May–October), the whales return to the bay’s warm, sheltered waters to breed, give birth and nurse their young, and whale watching charters operate from the jetty several times a day.

Head of the Bight (170km west of Fowlers Bay)

Near a sign marking the eastern end of the Nullarbor Plain, a minor road leaves the Eyre Highway (A1) and runs 12km to the soaring Bunda Cliffs. Known simply as the ‘Head of Bight’, this spectacular location overlooks one of the largest nurseries for Southern right whales on the remote south coast.

The Whale Watching Centre provides access to purpose-built platforms that provide excellent vantage points for viewing as many as 100 of these marvellous animals as they congregate to give birth, nurse their calves, and generally socialise before continuing their northward winter migration. The Centre has a picnic area adjacent to an education facility with displays about the whales and other local marine life.

Conserving the Great Australian Bight

The fringe of ocean below the Bunda Cliffs is protected by the South Australian Far West Coast Marine Park (1690sqkm) to the 3nm state limit, and the adjoining Commonwealth Great Australian Bight Marine Park (19,769sqkm), which extends to the 200nm limit of the EEZ to depths of 1000m. Although the parks are managed cooperatively, each jurisdiction has its own plan controlling the use and conservation of their respective components.

Collectively, the parks embrace four zones, each designed to protect a particular aspect of conservation: the globally significant habitat for the breeding and calving of southern right whales; haul-out, breeding, and foraging grounds for Australian sea-lions; habitats for other significant species, such as humpback whales, great white sharks, dolphins, and several species of albatross; and soft-sediment seafloor communities of invertebrates.

Bight Fisheries

The Great Australian Bight supports six Commonwealth fisheries managed by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), and six State fisheries managed by Primary Industry and Resources South Australia (PIRSA).

Two of the most important Commonwealth fisheries in economic terms are the Southern Bluefin Tuna Fishery (SBTF) and the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (SESSF). The SBTF is part of an international fishery, with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand its member nations. Southern bluefin tuna has been overfished globally for many years, including take by vessels operating outside international conventions, and the fishery is managed by setting catch quotas and limiting the number of purse seine vessels operating in the Bight. 

The SESSF is conducted by trawlers targeting deepwater flathead, redfish, orange roughy, dory, gemfish, leatherjacket, and blue grenadier, and by gillnet or shark hook longliners catching blue eye trevalla, pink ling, warehou, and various species of shark. Other Commonwealth fisheries target broadbill swordfish, skipjack tuna, mackerel, and arrow squid.

The main South Australian fisheries harvest southern rock lobster, giant crabs, abalone, prawns, scale-fish (snapper, King George whiting, and Australian salmon) and pilchards.

The Nullarbor Plain

Retreating northward from the Bunda Cliffs, and stretching 750km from east to west, the vast Nullarbor Plain sprawls over 270,000sqkm to the edge of the Great Victoria Desert. The plain comprises one of the largest karst landscapes in the world, a flat and featureless expanse covered with bluebush, saltbush, and drought-tolerant shrubs. In 1867, government surveyor Edmund Delisser noted the marked absence of trees and dubbed the region ‘Nullarbor’, from the Latin ‘nullus arbor’ meaning ‘no trees’.

In several locations the arid surface has collapsed into sinkholes revealing underground caverns, such as the Murrawijinie Caves north of the Nullarbor Roadhouse.

The entire South Australian section of the Nullarbor Plain, south of the Trans-Australian Rail Line, is covered by three conservation areas - the Nullarbor National Park (5813sqkm), the Nullarbor Regional Reserve (22,812sqkm) and the Nullarbor Wilderness Protection Area (9000sqkm), each protecting specific aspects of the environment and the unique plants and animals that live in them.

The Eyre Highway

The Eyre Highway connects Port Augusta, SA, with Norseman, WA, over a distance of 1675km. When first laid in 1941, it was little more than a rough dirt track of variable quality, presenting a major challenge for motorists. But it was gradually sealed over the next thirty years, incorporating the longest straight section at a world record 146km. (The Trans-Australian Railway across the Nullarbor boasts the longest straight section of rail line in the world at 478km.) Driving the highway now is a quintessential outback experience, albeit undertaken at the risk of suffering a case of the ‘Nullarborings’.

The Nullarbor Roadhouse, 14km west of the Head of Bight turnoff, offers a wide range of services to travelers — fuel, food, licensed restaurant, motel, caravan park, towing but not mechanical repairs — and is good for an overnight stop and staging point for whale watching. Charter flights out of the adjacent airstrip cover the seasonal whale migration, the Bunda Cliffs and nearby sand dune complex. West of the roadhouse, the highway runs close to the clifftops, with ready access to several lookouts with spectacular coastal views.

Border Village (187km west of Nullarbor Roadhouse)

As its name suggests, the settlement of Border Village sits on the SA–WA border and exists principally to serve the needs of passing travellers and the freight hauling industry. The roadhouse is open 24/7 offering good amenities and services that include fuel, takeaway food, motel with licensed bar and restaurant, caravan park, internet, and fresh water from its desalination plant. The Village also hosts a WA agricultural checkpoint and, if you are heading west, your vehicle will undergo a compulsory quarantine inspection and you will be required to hand in fresh fruit and vegetables, plants, seeds, honey, and other specified items. 

Eucla, WA (12km east of Border Village)

The tiny settlement of Eucla (population of 53) is the easternmost locality in Western Australia, beautifully positioned on the top of an escarpment with distant ocean views of the Bight. Like its SA counterpart, Eucla is a waypoint for passing travellers and haulage operators, with little more than a service station, hotel-motel with licensed restaurant, caravan park, golf course and a police station.

Its major attraction is the old Telegraph Station, lying in ghostly ruins among the beautiful white Delisser Sandhills, 5km to the south. Eucla was established as a manual repeater station for the Overland Telegraph in 1877 because it was the only place for hundreds of kilometres where boats could moor on the WA side of the Bight. The remnants of a jetty built for offloading supplies to the remote station may still be seen on the nearby beach. The station was abandoned in 1929 when a new telegraph line was constructed further north beside the Trans-Australian rail line.

Contacts

Streaky Bay Visitor Information Centre

21 Bay Road, Streaky

P: (08) 8626 7033

Ceduna Visitor Information Centre

58 Poynton Street, Ceduna

P: (08) 8625 3343 or 1800 639 413

W: ceduna.sa.gov.au

Head Of Bight Whale Watching Centre

Eyre Highway, Nullarbor

P: (08) 8625 6201

E: whalewatching@headofbight.com.au

W: headofbight.com.au

Nullarbor Roadhouse

Eyre Highway

P: (08) 8625 6271

W: nullarborroadhouse.com.au.

Border Village Roadhouse

Eyre Highway

P: (08) 9039 3474

Eucla Motor Hotel & Caravan Park

Eucla-Reid Rd, Eucla 

P: (08) 9039 3468

E: euclamotel@bigpond.com

W: australiasgoldenoutback.com/Listing/Eucla_Motor_Hotel