Once stained by blood, Misery Beach is now Australia's top stretch of sand
It was once flooded with blood, linked to convicts, synonymous with slaughter and haunted by pirates.
But now, Misery Beach is the shock winner of the official "Australia's Best Beach" award for 2022.
Flanked
by a giant rock face and lapped by calm waters, this spectacular beach
has long shed it sinister past as a whaling station and hideaway for
escaped convicts who looted ships along the south coast of Western
Australia (WA).
Little
known even in WA, Misery Beach claimed the title ahead of its renowned
tropical counterparts like Blue Pearl Bay in Queensland.
Awarded
each year by Tourism Australia, it's a big deal in a country that
claims to have more beaches than any other in the world -- somewhere in
the range of 12,000. The latest list of Australia's top 20 beaches, announced in early February, includes spots in every one of the country's states and territories.
Misery Beach, Australia's 'best beach' for 2022.
Frances Andrijich Photography
Misery
Beach is in a remote location 400 kilometers (nearly 250 miles) south
of WA's capital, Perth, near the pretty oceanside center of Albany. This
town of 38,000 people is so isolated it has not had a single case of
Covid-19 during the entire pandemic, according to Albany's mayor, Dennis
Wellington.
That
absence of Covid-19 is partly due to the fact WA has been shut to
foreign tourists for almost two years now, and has also been strict in
permitting tourism from other Australian states. Even now, as the
national government prepares to reopen Australia to international
tourists, the large state remains closed to most non-state residents.
But
Wellington says Albany had been hugely popular with domestic visitors
during the pandemic, and hopes the Misery Beach award will make the
region a greater draw for foreign tourists in the future.
"Misery
Beach is a lovely secluded spot, it feels so tucked away from the rest
of the world, and I think that'll appeal to lots of overseas tourists
who've been stuck in pandemic lockdowns and really just want some space
and nature," he tells CNN Travel. "I think the unique history of Misery
Beach and Albany will also fascinate lots of visitors."
Waters stained by death
Albany
became WA's first European settlement in 1826 and, like many of the
Australian colonies established by the British from the late 1700s
onwards, it was largely built by convicts. These criminals, mostly
British and Irish, were shipped to Australia and forced into labor at
locations like Albany.
But
some escaped, according to Sue Lefroy, local history coordinator for
the City of Albany. These desperate men fled to the forests and beaches
surrounding Albany and typically resorted to crime to survive, even
piracy.
"There were some unsavory characters operating in the waters near Albany," Lefroy says of the 1800s.
It
was in that Wild West environment that Australia's first pirate emerged
in 1826. American John Anderson arrived on a whaling vessel that docked
in King George Sound, the crystalline body of water that hugs Misery
Beach, according to Esperance Bay Historical Society president Beverly
Drabik.
Anderson
descended into piracy after he was blamed for killing a man in a brawl
in Albany and fled the settlement, says Drabik. He led a pirate gang of
escaped convicts that spent years raiding vessels along the south coast
of WA, which was a key shipping route for the British.
These same waters near Albany also became stained by death, Lefroy explains.
King
George Sound was home to whaling operations from the 1840s, and in the
early 1900s this brutal activity began next to Misery Beach. Its
tranquil waters would often be inundated with the blood of slaughtered
whales, she says.
That horror may have given this beach its unique name.
The Albany Historic Whaling Station contains a blue whale skeleton.
Ronan O'Connell
"There's
not actually an official record of how Misery Beach was named, but
there are two schools of thought on that," Lefroy says.
"When
whalers approached the beach by boat, the way the sun would hit the
beach's rock face in the afternoons made it look like a frowning face.
The other school of thought is that the misery name referred to the
killing of whales that happened around there, and the (blood red) color
of the water and the awful smell from that activity."
Misery Beach deserved its grim moniker up until the 1970s, when whaling ceased there.
Tourists can learn about this era at the large and impressive Albany Historic Whaling Station, just 500 meters west of Misery Beach.
It was the last whaling post in all of Australia before it was shut in 1978.
Today,
visitors can watch archival footage inside converted whale oil tanks,
explore the Cheynes IV (the world's only preserved Whalechaser ship),
see a massive blue whale skeleton and admire a large marine animal art
collection.
Alongside
that station, to its west, is the stunning Cheyne Beach, another of the
countless majestic strips of sand in this untamed nook of WA.
The
pandemic has only made Albany and its surrounds an even more attractive
location, according to Catrin Allsop, CEO of Australia's South West,
the tourism body that manages this region.
"Misery
Beach fits the bill for the kind of destination tourists are looking
for since the pandemic -- a secluded and raw natural landscape where
you'll often find the beach all to yourself," Allsop states.
She
adds they hope the global exposure earned by Misery Beach's recent
award would also direct more tourists to nearby attractions like
Albany's modern National Anzac Centre as well as the former whaling station.
Opened
in 2014, the award-winning facility is a modern war museum that employs
multimedia, interactive technology and historical artifacts to pay
tribute to the more than 40,000 Australians and New Zealanders who left
Albany in 1914, bound for the Great War.
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