Freshwater Bay (Western Australia)

Freshwater Bay is a bay of the Swan River, in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia. It is about 5 km upstream from the mouth of the river at Fremantle and is overlooked by the suburbs of Dalkeith, Claremont, Mosman Park and Peppermint Grove. Freshwater Bay was named after Freshwater Bay and Freshwater, Isle of Wight by Henry Charles Prinsep (1844-1922), who had a riverside family holiday cottage there, The Chine.[1]

Freshwater Bay west side from Claremont foreshore
This article is about the bay in Perth. For other uses, see Freshwater Bay (disambiguation).

Indigenous context

Before and after the arrival of Europeans, the bay had significance to local indigenous people.[2]

Features

Much of the bay's foreshore on the western and eastern sides are limestone cliffs. The head of the bay is the location of the Claremont foreshore. Other important features to the south are the sand spit at Point Walter and Point Resolution at the eastern end.

Human interaction

Parts of Freshwater Bay are designated ski areas. Due to Point Walter's spit and the high surrounding limestone cliffs, the bay has relatively calm waters and is protected from winds, making the area suited for jet skiing, rowing, sailing and other water recreations.

Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club[3] and Claremont Yacht Club are situated in the bay, both of which provide recreational boat mooring space and other club facilities as well as conducting races.

Christ Church Grammar School and Methodist Ladies' College are also situated atop the limestone cliffs along the northern section of the bay, often using it for rowing training and also kayaking for physical education classes.

Environmental management

Extensive and long standing environmental impacts of suburban development around the bay have been reviewed following stricter environmental regulation.[4][5]

Notes
  1. Allbrook, Malcolm (2014). "'Received into the very best society'". Henry Prinsep’s Empire: Framing a distant colony. Canberra ACT: ANU Press. ISBN 9781925021608. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
  2. Faulkner, Kerry. (2000) "Freshwater Bay...I remember it well." (Nyungar elder Bropho talks about his memories of the Bay from his youth and his native title claim over crown land on the Peppermint Grove foreshore). Subiaco post, 26 Aug. 2000, p.1, 63
  3. Tregonning, K. G. (1996) The Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club 1896-1996 Perth : Austed Publishing with the Club ISBN 1-86307-028-1
  4. Chape, Stuart.(1994) Draft Freshwater Bay management plan : report to the Swan River Trust and the Claremont Heritage Trust Advisory Committee Perth, W.A. Report, 1033-9779 (Swan River Trust (W.A.)) ; no. 16. ISBN 0730961109
  5. Swan River Trust (W.A.) (1999) Freshwater Bay management plan : prepared in conjunction with the Claremont Heritage Trust Advisory Committee. East Perth, W.A. : The Trust Series Report, 1033-9779 (Swan River Trust (W.A.)) ; no. 29. ISBN 0-7309-7305-0

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