The Recherche Archipelago, known locally as the Bay of Isles, is a group of 105 islands and more than 1,200 smaller rocky obstacles to shipping off the southern coast of Western Australia, extending about 230 kilometers east to west and up to about 50 kilometers offshore across roughly 4,000 square kilometers, protected as the Recherche Archipelago Nature Reserve. Its western islands lie near the town of Esperance and its eastern islands near Israelite Bay, and the islands are fundamentally granite outcrops with steep slopes, the largest, Middle Island at 1,080 hectares, rising to Flinders Peak at 185 meters, climbed by the navigator Matthew Flinders in 1802. Lower sea levels once joined the islands to the mainland, and archaeological evidence on Salisbury Island shows human use dating back about 13,000 years; today the archipelago is recognized as a biodiversity hotspot and an Important Bird Area.
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Recherche Archipelago (Wikipedia)
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The Archipelago of the Recherche, known locally as the Bay of Isles, is a group of 105 islands, and over 1200 "obstacles to shipping", off the south coast of Western Australia.
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