Fitzgerald River National Park is a national park in Western Australia (Australia), 419 kilometres (260 mi) southeast of Perth, in the Shire of Ravensthorpe and the Shire of Jerramungup.
The park includes the Barren Mountains and Eyre Range and the Fitzgerald River as well as incorporating the Fitzgerald Biosphere. There are 62 plant species which are unique to the 329,882 hectares (815,160 acres) park and a further 48 are rarely found elsewhere.
Recording almost 40,000 visitors in 2008, the park received $20 million in funding from the federal government's economic stimulus plan with the state government contributing an additional $20 million. The investment is to be used to redevelop and seal 80 km (50 mi) of roads within the park, construct a walk trail from Bremer Bay to Hopetoun and upgrade existing recreational facilities.
Point Ann is one of the two places (the other is Head of the Bight) along Australia's coast where Southern Right Whales come to calve during their winter migration.
Within the National Park is the Quaalup Homestead Wilderness Retreat (now run as a hotel) that was built in 1858 by the Wellstead Family. In 1890, the Hassell family took over the pastoral lease and the homestead.
The park can be accessed from the western side via Bremer Bay, or from the eastern side via Hopetoun. The central area of the park is only accessible with a four wheel drive vehicle or on foot.
Many of the peaks in the park are off limits to climbers to prevent the spread of dieback or root rot from Phytophthora cinnamomi.
Read more about Fitzgerald River National Park: Flora and Fauna
Famous quotes containing the words fitzgerald, river, national and/or park:
“Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his “comb” and “spare shirt,” “leathern breeches” and “gauze cap to keep off gnats,” with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)