Cambridge Gulf

The Cambridge Gulf is a bay in the northeast of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is located in the Kimberley region.

Geography

Several rivers flow into the bay, the Ord River, Pentecost River, Durack of the River, King River and the Forrest River.

In the Cambridge Gulf, there are two floods with flood heights of 7 m to 9 m per day.

The City of Wyndham, the main port of the Kimberley region, located on the eastern shore of the bay, about 120 km north of the town Kununurra. The Cambridge Gulf is part of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf.

In the hinterland of the West Coast of the Cambridge Gulf, there are high sandstone hills that reach heights of 30 to 250 m. On the coast you will find extensive mangrove colonies and at low water and tidal flats. Adolphus Iceland lies at the southern end of the bay and splits it into a navigable West arm on which the city is located Wyndham, and East Arm, in the Ord River flows.

History

The golf got its name from Philip Parker King, who landed on these shores in 1819 on board the Mermaid, but she soon left again because he found no fresh water in the mud at the edges of the bay. King named the Gulf after the then Duke of Cambridge, Prince Adolphus. Alexander Forrest was the next European to 1879 this area explored and 1884 the first settlers landed in the port of Wyndham, which then attracted inland to breed cattle and also to later search for gold. The boom times in 1886 often anchored up to 16 ships in the Cambridge Gulf and waited on a dock in the port of Wyndham.