Wilson Inlet

Wilson Inlet is an inlet located in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The inlet receives water from the two main rivers: the Denmark River and the Hay River and some smaller rivers and streams such as the Sleeman River, Little River and Cuppup Creek. It is located 2 kilometres (1 mi) South East of the town of Denmark.

The inlet is a wave dominated estuary with an opening mouth that has a width of 100 metres (328 ft) with a bar blocking it from late January to August. The inlet is separated into two basins, the Eastern and Western basin.

The estuary is situated on a narrow coastal plain between granite hills to the north and the west and the coastal dunes to the south. The area of the inlet is 48 square kilometres (19 sq mi) and has an average depth of 1.8 metres (6 ft) and its deepest point is 5 metres (16 ft). The inlet is 14 kilometres (9 mi) long from East to West and has a width of 4 kilometres (2 mi)

The inlet has a total catchment area of 2,263 square kilometres (874 sq mi) covering parts of the Shire of Plantagenet, the Shire of Denmark and the City of Albany.

The inlet discharges through Nullaki Point at the Eastern end of Ocean Beach and into Ratcliffe Bay and finally into the Southern Ocean when the sandbar is open. The Wilson Inlet bar was last breached by the Water Corporation in July 2008.

The low lying land adjacent to the inlet consists of swamps with lakes to the East. The silt beds in the area indicate that it was of recent estuarine origin. The majority of the catchment is contained within the Albany-Fraser geological province with the original granite overlaid with sands and laterite deposited in the Quaternary period.