June 13, 2021July 17, 2021

A Day Trip to Dirk Hartog Island

This post is part of our Western Australia road trip. In case you don’t want to read this sequentially, or you are looking for another part of the trip, here are some shortcuts:

Lake Ballard
Exmouth and Coral Bay
Shark Bay and Monkey Mia
- Dirk Hartog Island <– You are here
- Shark Bay Scenic Flight
Kalbarri
- Hutt Lagoon Scenic Flight
Jurien Bay

Dirk Hartog Island

Never heard of Dirk Hartog Island? You’re probably not alone. We saw Dirk Hartog in an All4Adventure episode a while back, but it seemed logistically challenging. There’s a barge from Steep Point (the western-most part of mainland Australia), but we don’t do 4WD or camping (yet). But look at that scenery!

When researching Shark Bay, we learned that you can do a day trip from Denham.

Dirk Hartog Island is located about 35km west of Denham and is 80 kilometres (50 miles) long and between 3 and 15 kilometres (1.9 and 9.3 miles) wide. It was named after Dirk Hartog, a Dutch sea captain, who first encountered the Western Australian coastline close to the 26th parallel south latitude, which runs through the island. – Wikipedia

Denham is a 20 minute drive from Monkey Mia. We headed over early so we could get a coffee and stop by the pharmacy for some bug bite relief. It was 15C/59F so I decided to buy a pair of pants as well. I was very glad that we brought our diving jackets because the wind made it pretty cold on the hour and fifteen minute crossing.

The boat moored in Homestead Bay, and we boarded to a dinghy/tender which took us to the beach. We had to wade through a bunch of seaweed which lined the shore due to recent storms. Homestead Bay, which is in the south east of the island, has an eco lodge and campsites. The lodge is booked a year in advance due to Covid.