Qualla: Murat Bay

Murat Bay: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tentotwo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two ships had circled this coast in the same season, one French and one English, and the maps they left behind still argue with each other. The English captain, Matthew Flinders, sailed in looking for fresh water, found none, and named the larger sound Denial Bay in disappointment. The French, arriving close behind, were in a naming mood of a different sort: they christened the sheltered inner bay after Joachim Murat, a dashing cavalry marshal of Napoleon's empire who would never come within ten thousand miles of it. Murat Bay is that inner water - a quiet, shallow inlet at the far western tip of South Australia's Eyre Peninsula, where the open swell of the Great Australian Bight finally lies down and goes still.

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Image: Tentotwo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Murat Bay: A Marshal Who Never Came

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Виктор В, CC BY-SA 3.0. The naming was almost an afterthought. Nicolas Baudin first marked the bay as Baie des Saints; then his naturalists François Péron and Louis de Freycinet, working up the charts from the same expedition, renamed it Baie Murat after Joachim Murat, Marshal of France and one of the m...

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Image: Виктор В | CC BY-SA 3.0

Murat Bay: The Town That Changed Its Name

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit State Government Photographer, CC0. On the shore of the bay sits Ceduna, the last sizeable town before the Nullarbor swallows the highway. Its name comes from the Wirangu word often rendered chedoona, understood to mean a place to sit down and rest - which is what travellers still do here before the long, treeless ...

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Image: State Government Photographer | CC0

Murat Bay: Where the Birds Gather

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Виктор В, CC BY-SA 3.0. Geography here is a matter of fine print. Murat Bay is the enclosed water bounded by Cape Thevenard and Matts Point; Denial Bay is the broader sound beyond, screened from the open ocean by the low islands of the Nuyts Archipelago. Together with neighbouring Tourville Bay, these s...

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Image: Виктор В | CC BY-SA 3.0