Beach WA 11 occupies Scorpion Bight, named after the cutter Scorpion wrecked here in 1876. The bight is a 2 km deep indentation in the run of the shoreline, with the 8.5 km long beach occupying the relatively straight eastern arm, and a protruding western section. Wave energy is slightly higher along the bight and dunes are more active. On the eastern arm dunes have extended 500 m inland while out on the protrusion a 4 km long dune system is up to 1 km wide. All the dunes tend to have a stable foredune, deflation basin, then active transverse dunes spilling onto the backing scrubland. In addition early Holocene dunes, part of the Burremul Sand Patch extend up to 7 km in from the bight, with still more extensive dunes originating from Kaniaal Beach, 50 km to the west lie between 12 and 25 km inland. These are discussed in the next beach description. The beach continues as an undulating, low gradient beach face, with a high tide seagrass debris berm, and a continuous low tide bar, then seagrass meadows. To the west of Scorpion Bight the shoreline trends due west along the Burremul Sand Patch for 26 km, before trending west-northwest for 29 km along Kaniaal Beach, which includes the Eyre Bird Observatory. It then protrudes southeast for 14 km around the bulge in the shoreline that terminates at Twilight Cove against the 100 m high northern edge of the Baxter Cliffs. This 70 km long section of coast is one of the more geologically interesting on the Australian coast. It is backed by the largest, single mainland, coastal dune system in Australia, which extends up to 105 km inland. It also marks the western boundary of the Roe Plain and the beginning of the spectacular Baxter Cliffs, with most of the cliffs draped in both lithified Pleistocene and Holocene dunes, including massive clifftop dunes, that in places have blown up, along and back over the 100 m high vertical cliffs. The coast is accessible only at Eyre (280 km) and Twilight Cove (305 km). read more

Beach Length: 8.5km