Twilight Cove (WA 16) is named after the cutter Twilight wrecked on the beach in 1877, one of three known 19th century wrecks at the beach. The cove has a continuous moderately steep quartz-rich sand beach that trends west for 3 km to the base of the 100 m high cliff line (Fig. 4.9). The beach receives waves averaging 0.5-1 m, which maintain a continuous low tide bar, usually free of rips. The system both undulates in response to offshore calcarenite reefs, as well as increasingly oscillating towards the western end, where the shoreline may move backwards and forwards more than 100 m over a period of years. The beach is backed by a low foredune area, then a deflation basin that includes Pleistocene calcarenite, which has been scarped by waves in the past, then an active dune system, which is transgressing over the backing casuarina woodland, and finally the older Pleistocene dunes, which abut the escarpment. In the far west the Holocene dunes have reached the base of the cliffs. There is vehicle access to Twilight Cove both along the beach from Eyre, and via tracks from Cocklebiddy, 26 km to the north. The dunes behind the beach are used from informal camping. The remains of Carlisle’s hut are located on the Pleistocene slopes towards the western end of the dunes. Carlisle and his family of eleven children lived in this remote location during the mid parts of the 20th century. The Baxter Cliffs commence at Twilight Cove and trend to the southwest for 158 km to the eastern end of Bilbunya beach and the beginning of the Wylie Scarp. The cliffs are named after John Baxter who was murdered at 355 km in 1841, while the Wylie scarp, was named after John Eyre’s final companion in his historic walk across the Great Australian Bight. The sheer cliffs are composed of Tertiary marine limestone and average 60-80 m high. They run uninterrupted for the entire length, with just two small pockets of sand located in small coves at the base of the cliffs (WA 17 & 18). read more

Beach Length: 3km