Great Australian Bight

The Great Australian Bight Great Australian Bight or English is a large bay on the central and western parts of the south coast of Australia. The bay is part of the Indian Ocean. According to the definition of the International Hydrographic Bureau, the bay between West Cape Howe is located in Western Australia and South East Cape in Tasmania. Often with Great Australian Bight but only the area between Cape Pasley in Western Australia and Cape Carnot understood on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. These two points are currently 1160 kilometers away from each other.

During the winter months the Great Australian Bight is very stormy. In the Great Australian Bight meet cold and warm currents. The waves are among the highest and most consistent worldwide. The shelf is wide in certain places more than 200 km. In the Great Australian Bight little freshwater flows, as in the areas around the bay, very little rain falls and rain water usually does not reach the sea.

The coastline of the Great Australian Bight is characterized by high cliffs that reach heights up to 60 m, and beaches. Large sections of the coast are uninhabited, especially in the area of the Nullarbor Plain. Only the edges of the desert from the Eyre Peninsula and west from Esperance are sparsely populated. Important places in the narrow space of the Great Australian Bight are the fishing town of Port Lincoln on the southern tip of the Eyre Peninsula Ceduna at the western end and the small Eucla on the border between Western and South Australia. In the larger catchment area of ​​the bay, especially the South Australian cities Port Augusta in Spencer Gulf and Adelaide metropolitan region in the Gulf St. Vincent are worth mentioning. On the west you can add include the towns of Albany and Esperance in accordance with the further definition.

The remoteness and the various currents in the shelf could create a rich biodiversity which is locally protected as national parks. Often there are small animals such as mollusks, starfish, sea urchins, sea horses, jellyfish, sea cucumbers and sea squirts, but also many algae and seagrasses, which are often only found in the unique ecosystem of the bay. Among the larger species that inhabit the bay, including sharks, fairy penguins, whales and other marine mammals. The area was exploited by the fishing industry. Especially tuna was fished much. Many coastal areas are national parks, under which Great Australian Bight Marine Park, Nullarbor National Park, Nuyts - Archipelago - Conservation Park, Nuyts Reef Conservation Park, Investigator Group Conservation Park, Coffin Bay National Park, Whidbey Isles Conservation Park, Nuytsland Nature Reserve, Cape Arid National Park, Eucla National Park and Recherche Archipelago Nature Reserve are among the most important.

Europeans drove for the first time in the waters of the Great Australian Bight in 1627, when the Dutch explorer Pieter Nuyts François Thijssen with which the area mapped for the first time, imports from the west into the bay. It was first carefully mapped out in 1802 by the English Captain Matthew Flinders when he circumnavigated the Australian continent. An expedition on land succeeded Edward John Eyre.