Cape Riche

Cape Riche was named for Claude-Antoine-Gaspard Riche, a naturalist on Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's 1791 expedition who became lost for two days near Esperance.{{cite book|title=Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia|year=1916|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=okEPAAAAIAAJ&q=%22cape+riche+%22+recherche|accessdate=12 July 2009| publisher=S.N.}}

Matthew Flinders aboard Investigator charted the area in 1802 as part of his circumnavigation of Australia.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240410992 |title=Flinders knew Albany |newspaper=Mount Barker And Denmark Record |volume=6 |issue=744 |location=Western Australia |date=2 December 1935 |accessdate=22 October 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}

George Cheyne, a Scottish immigrant, took up land at Cape Riche in 1836, after arriving in Albany in 1831.{{cite web|title=Explorers' Diaries of Western Australia|url=http://www.explorationswa.com.au/Errata/Updated_Expanded_Bio_Notes.php|accessdate=6 July 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090603214207/http://www.explorationswa.com.au/Errata/Updated_Expanded_Bio_Notes.php|archive-date=3 June 2009|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.explorationswa.com.au/the-volumes/western-australian-exploration-1826-1835/errata-western-australian-exploration-1826-1835/biographical-notes/|title=Upgraded and Expanded Biographical Notes – Western Australian Exploration 1826-1835|accessdate=30 August 2015|publisher=Western Australian Explorers' Diaries Project|year=2014}} He established a trading post which was often visited by American whalers.{{cite web|author=Speakman, Stefanie|title=Aloft Down Under|work=The New York Times|date=21 November 1999|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/21/magazine/aloft-down-under.html?pagewanted=3|accessdate=12 July 2009}} In about 1848, sandalwood cutters arrived in the area,{{cite web|author=Heberle, Greg|title=Heberle Fishing, Western Australia 1929-2004|url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gregheberle/AdobePDF/HeberleFishingWestAustralia-1929-2004/FISH-COMBINED.pdf|accessdate=12 July 2009}}

The Surveyor-General of Western Australia, John Septimus Roe, visited the Cape in October 1848 as part of this 1848–49 expedition and reorganised his supplies while staying with the Cheyne family. He left four days later to make his way to the Russell Range.

The Cheyne properties were later taken over by the related Moir family. The Cape Riche Homestead, also known as Moirs Property, was designed and built between 1850 and 1860 by Alexander Moir. It comprises a large group of spongolite buildings.{{cite web|title=Cape Riche Homesead |work=Places Database |publisher=Heritage Council of Western Australia |url=http://register.heritage.wa.gov.au/viewplace.html?place_seq=81&offset=0&view=associations |accessdate=12 July 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120227121748/http://register.heritage.wa.gov.au/viewplace.html?place_seq=81&offset=0&view=associations |archivedate=27 February 2012 }}{{cite web |title=Quaalup Homestead Group |work=Register of Heritage Places – Assessment Documentation=Heritage Council of Western Australia |url=http://register.heritage.wa.gov.au/PDF_Files/P-Q%20-%20A-D/Quaalup%20Homestead%20Group,%20near%20Bremar%20Bay(I-AD).PDF |accessdate=12 July 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090712200626/http://register.heritage.wa.gov.au/PDF_Files/P-Q%20-%20A-D/Quaalup%20Homestead%20Group%2C%20near%20Bremar%20Bay%28I-AD%29.PDF |archivedate=12 July 2009 }}

Bay whaling activity took place on the coast in the 1870s.{{Citation | author1=Gibbs, Martin | author2=Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology | author3=Gibbs, Martin | title=The shore whalers of Western Australia : historical archaeology of a maritime frontier | publication-date=2010 | publisher=Sydney University Press | isbn=978-1-920899-62-2}} p.139–40.

In the 1890s the schooner Grace Darling provided supplies and delivered the mail on its monthly run between Albany and Esperance.{{cite book|title=Maritime Albany Remembered | author=de L. Marshall|author2=Les Douglas|year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8-1Dp_ARAYC&q=cape+riche+grace+darling&pg=PA268 | accessdate=12 July 2009| isbn=978-0-646-49913-0 | publisher=Tangee Publishing}}

A number of botanists and explorers conducted plant collections in the area in the mid-19th century including Ludwig Preiss (1840), James Drummond (1840, 1846–48)

John Septimus Roe (1848) and William Henry Harvey (1854). Plant species which were formally described based on these collections included Moirs wattle (Acacia moirii), sheath cottonhead (Conostylis vaginata), tallerack (Eucalyptus pleurocarpa), autumn featherflower (Verticordia harveyi) and Bossiaea preissii. Ludwig Diels and Ernst Pritzel also collected plant material at Cape Riche in 1901.{{cite journal |last=Beard |first=JS |year=2001 |title=The Botanists Diels and Pritzel in Western Australia:A Centenary |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia |volume=84 |pages=143–148 |url=http://www.rswa.org.au/content/work/journals/PDF/84(4)/BEARD.PDF |accessdate=12 July 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090920122908/http://www.rswa.org.au/content/work/journals/PDF/84%284%29/BEARD.PDF |archivedate=20 September 2009 }}

Cape Riche is home to a number of rare flora species including feather-leaved banksia (Banksia brownii), Manypeaks rush (Chordifex arbortivus), Manypeaks sundew (Drosera fimbriata) and coast featherflower (Verticordia helichrysantha). The Albany/Cape Riche area is noted as a calving area for southern right whales.{{cite web|title=The South-west Marine Bioloregional Plan – Bioregional Profile Plan |url=http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mbp/publications/south-west/pubs/sw-profile-full.pdf |accessdate=12 July 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201104201/http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mbp/publications/south-west/pubs/sw-profile-full.pdf |archivedate=1 December 2008 }}

{{Gallery

|align=centre

|width=180

|height=180

|Image:Cape Riche and Cheyne Island.jpg

|Cape Riche and Cheyne Island from nearby Mount Melville

}}

{{Reflist |30em}}

{{Subject bar |auto=y |portal1=Western Australia |portal2=Geography }}

{{authority control}}

Category:City of Albany, Western Australia

Category:Headlands of Western Australia

Category:Whaling stations in Australia