Denham (including Nanga)
Main township for travellers wanting to visit Monkey Mia and Shark Bay
This should be read in conjunction with the entry on Shark Bay.

Denham is both the western most town in Australia (at the 113°32" East meridian of longitude) and the gateway to Monkey Mia with its friendly dolphins. Located on the western coast of the Peron Peninsula it is 23 km southwest of the dolphins and 831 km north of Perth.

The area was the first part of the Australian mainland discovered by European sailors (see Cape Inscription for a detailed history of the Dutch exploration of the area). After the Dutch came William Dampier who wrote in his successful book A Voyage to New Holland that it 'Twas the 7th of August when we came into Shark's Bay; in which we Anchor'd at three several Places, and stay'd at the first of them (on the W. side of the Bay) till the 11th. During which time we searched about, as I said, for fresh Water, digging Wells, but to no purpose.' Dampier wasn't experiencing a drought year. Even today the area around Shark Bay receives such a low rainfall that the fresh water at Denham comes from a desalination plant. There are strict controls on the consumption of water in the town with threats that excessive use of fresh water will incur penalties. The penalty: to pay the full price for the desalination.

After Dampier came the Frenchmen Freycinet, Hamelin and Baudin who passed through the area in the early 1800s. They discovered the Geographe Channel which was named after Baudin's ship and, over the period from 1801-1818 visited the area three times. The dryness of the landscape and the obvious lack of water did little to create any real French enthusiasm for the region. The coast remained uninhabited by Europeans until the mid-nineteenth century. In 1858 Shark Bay was chartered by Captain H.M. Denham - the town is named in his honour.

Around this time F.L. Von Bibra settled on Dirk Hartog Island and convicts briefly came to the area to dig guano (bird droppings). It was as a result of this that Lieutenant Helpman, who had been sent to the area to sort out the issue of convicts being used to dig guano, discovered the pearl shells which abounded in the bay.

In his book on Broome, Port of Pearls, Hugh Edwards writes of Denham 'The first pearls to be found in Western Australia were in Shark Bay in 1854 by a Lieutenant Helpman known as the 'Admiral of the Swan River Navy'.

'Excited by finding dense beds of the small oyster Pinctada radiata he applied for the sole concession to work the Shark Bay pearl beds.

'This was initially agreed to but a public outcry made the beds open to everyone. The technique of pearling had none of the romance and danger which was later associated with the pearling fleets which operated out of Broome. The pearl shells were dredged and put on the beach in what were called 'pogey-tubs' and left to rot. Eventually the shells fell open and the pearls, if there were any, dropped out. The smell of the 'pogey-tubs' was horrific. The experiment was short lived as the pearl beds were overfished early. The only interesting consequence was that Denham's streets achieved the unique distinction of being paved with pearl shells. In an extraordinary act of vandalism the local roads board put bitumen over the pearl shells in the 1960s thus destroying what could have been a remarkable tourist attraction.'

Feeding the dolphins at Monkey Mia near Denham

Today the town survives on the influx of tourists who come to the area to see the dolphins. With only a single caravan park-motel-backpacker destination at Monkey Mia people requiring other accommodation stay at either Denham or Nanga or take bus trips from Carnarvon.

But this sense of Denham as a stopover is to undervalue the beauty of the township. It has an almost Mediterranean feel about it with a small and beautiful beach and a jetty from which fishing and boating are popular activities.

Things to see:

Take Advantage of Western Australia Online
For assistance in planning your holiday in Denham visit Western Australia Online which is a fascinating site offering Denham visitors a comprehensive travel service. All you have to do, to have your most detailed travel questions answered, is fill out a very simple form. Western Australia Online pride themselves in their ability to answer all queries within 48 hours. So, if Walkabout is not answering your questions about Denham, try Western Australia Online.

Shell Beach near Denham

Interesting Buildings and destinations
Most of the buildings in the town are of no particular interest with St Andrews Church (on the corner of Hughes and Brockman Streets) and The Old Pearlers Restaurant (on the waterfront at Durlacher Street and Knight Terrace) being notable exceptions. Both have been built from coquina shell block - a shell aggregate (a kind of shell stone) which comes from Shell Beach (see Shark Bay) near the town.

In Denham's Pioneer Park is a slab of rock marked 'Herald; Denham; 1858' which was inscribed at Eagle Bluff (see Shark Bay) by Captain Denham during his survey in 1858.

48 km south of Denham is Nanga Station, a huge sheep station which has embraced the growing tourism in the region by providing caravan sites as well as bunkhouse, cabin, home unit and motel accommodation, a restaurant, liquor store and shop.