North West Cape is a prominent peninsula in the northwestern part of Western Australia that juts northward into the ocean, extending roughly 75 kilometers. The only town on North West Cape is Exmouth, which is located on the eastern side of the peninsula next to Exmouth Gulf, which is the large body of water that separates the peninsula from the rest of the mainland. Exmouth is a town of fewer than 2,000 residents that is the only town anywhere for seemingly endless miles. To understand how almost unfathomably remote Exmouth is, it helps to know that you'd have to go south more than 350 kilometers or east more that 500 kilometers to reach another town of comparable size. Most of the western side of North West Cape is part of Cape Range National Park, and a prominent feature of the western side of the peninsula is the Ningaloo Reef, a coral reef that begins near the northern tip of the peninsula and extends southward more than 250 kilometers (well beyond the southern end of the peninsula).

Mauritius Beach is a segment of beach on the western (ocean) side of the peninsula, near the northern tip. The beach is actually within the boundaries of the national park, but it is not within the zone of the park where a day-use fee is required. Mauritius has a long history of nude use, and in 1999 the local town council bestowed it with an official clothing-optional designation. It is probably a safe bet to say that Mauritius is the most remote legally recognized nude beach anywhere in the world, based on its location in one of the least densely populated regions of Australia, which in turn is one of the least densely populated countries on the planet. The designated nude area is just under one kilometer in length, roughly indicated by the area lightly shaded in red. The beach is quite easy to access. A short path from the parking lots leads directly to the central area of the nude beach. From there, you can walk about 5 minutes in either direction before reaching the end of the designated nude area. Mauritius is a beautiful sandy beach, and the reef a short distance offshore forms a shallow swimming area with gorgeous turquoise water. Despite its legal nude status, Mauritius is likely to have just a small number of visitors, nudist or otherwise. The beach does not have any amenities. Food is available at the Lighthouse Caravan Park, about 2.5 kilometers from the beach (backtracking toward Exmouth).

The only reasonable way to get to Mauritius involves passing through Exmouth. After Exmouth, the main road of the North West Cape essentially makes a long horseshoe turn across the northern tip of the peninsula and the begins to head south along the ocean side of the peninsula. If you were to keep following this road (Yardie Creek Road) south past Mauritius Beach, after about 20 kilometers you would reach the entry station for Cape Range National Park, where a fee is required to continue farther. (But you will have actually been on national park land as far back as the lighthouse that is near Mauritius Beach.) Beyond the entry station, Yardie Creek Road continues south about 48 kilometers farther before ending at the mouth of Yardie Creek (Map It). This is a unique area where a sandbar at the mouth of the creek traps the water, forming a long lake that extends over one kilometer inland into a gorge. The gorge of Yardie Creek is an especially scenic and popular tourist attraction. Once you reach Yardie Creek, you will have to turn around and backtrack all the way around the peninsula (through Exmouth) since there are no through roads… unless you are a particularly adventurous four-wheel drive enthusiast. In that case, you can cross the sandbar at the mouth of the creek and continue south along a coastal four-wheel-drive route for a seemingly infinite distance. If you were to keep going a little more than 100 kilometers south of Yardie Creek along the coastal track, you would hit pavement again in the small settlement of Coral Bay.

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GPS: -21.8096, 114.0950

town, state, country
  Exmouth, Western Australia, Australia

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