Kalbarri - Culture and History

Although the coastline around Kalbarri was explored by Europeans in the early seventeenth century the actual town of Kalbarri did not come into existence until 1951. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, that is 1951.

The coastline around Kalbarri was the scene for the notorious shipwreck, mutiny, executions, and punishments which surrounded the wrecking of the Batavia on the Houtman Abrolhos in 1629 (for a more detailed account refer to the Geraldton entry). The captain, Francisco Pelsaert, took the ship's boat and sailed to Batavia while a mutineer, Jeronimus Cornelisz, terrorised the survivors eventually murdering 125 of them. When Pelsaert returned he constructed a simple gibbet and executed Cornelisz and his followers. Two of the mutineers, Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom, were marooned on the mainland somewhere near the modern day site of Kalbarri - they had the unhappy distinction of becoming Australia's first white settlers. Their arrival on land is commemorated at the mouth of the Wittecarra Creek near Red Bluff where a cairn has been erected with the inscription: 'It is believed the first permanent landing of white men in Australia was recorded here, at the mouth of the Wittecarra Creek.'

Then in 1712 a Dutch ship named the Zuytdorp was wrecked on a reef north of Kalbarri. It is claimed that the ship sunk with a bullion of 100 000 guilders and pieces of eight aboard. This was not an isolated event. By the eighteenth century it had become commonplace for Dutch ships to round the Cape of Good Hope, sail west along the Roaring Forties, and then sail north along the West Australian coast towards the Dutch East Indies.

In 1839 Lieutenant George Grey, while attempting to explore North West Cape, was shipwrecked near the mouth of the Murchison. He was forced to walk back to Perth and thus became the first white explorer to travel along the coastal strip of the Central West.

The area was settled intermittently through the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by miners and fishermen. In 1848 the Geraldine lead mine was opened up. Visitors with 4WD vehicles can visit the ruins at the eastern edge of the Kalbarri National Park.

Still, as recently as 1943, there were only a few crayfishermen living in the area and the township, if it could be called that, was known simply as 'The Mouth of the Murchison'. No one knows where the word 'kalbarri' comes from. Some sources claim it means 'seed' or 'woody pear' in the dialect of the local Aborigines while others claim it was the name of an important member of the local community.

Today the town is a popular tourist destination with fishing, swimming, horse riding, bushwalking and the usual round of tourist attractions including a wildflower park called Kalflora, a Fantasyland Museum with a display of dolls and marine artifacts, an amusement centre, a bird park called the Rainbow Jungle, canoe safaris, ocean fishing, joy flights and river cruises on the Kalbarri River Queen.