Exmouth (Western Australia): See
=== North ===
North has most of Exmouth's sights. Follow the main highway Murat Road.
1 Point Murat 14 km north is the headland near the tip of North West Cape. The Navy Pier, 110 m long, is still used by navy vessels, so access is only allowed on regulated dive trips (see below) - no snorkelling or clambering on the structure. Bundegi Beach just south can be reached by public road and has a boat jetty. Beyond the beach turn-off, Murat Road is closed to all except authorised vehicles. The Point and coast highway are named for Admiral Joachim Murat (1767-1815), a Napoleonic cavalry marshal who knew diddly-squat about the sea, and who was executed by firing squad for changing sides unsuccessfully.
Howard E Holt Naval Communication Station is the military base by the Point, so it's off-limits, but you'll see its "Tower Zero" from afar. This is 387 m / 1270 ft tall, set within a hexagon of 364 m towers, and its job is radio comms with faraway ships and submarines at very low frequency, 19.8 kHz. For a standard monopole aerial to work at that wavelength it would need to be almost 4 km tall, so the trick is to amplify it with an array of subsidiary masts. In civilian transmitters these are low-set and look like the ribs of an umbrella, but to talk to submerged subs demands very high power. So this leads to the "trideco" design, where the other masts are almost as tall, and to a radio wave they look like a hexagonal antenna 2 km across. There's no credible evidence of side effects on wildlife, aircraft comms or anything tangible, but the station does spawn dingbat memes. One favourite is that it controls the weather - ever since it was commissioned in 1968, Australia has been a hot dry country, right? It's named for Howard Holt who was the prime minister from 1966 to 1967, when he disappeared while swimming in Victoria . . . spooky huh?
2 SS Mildura is a wreck visible at low tide 80 m off the tip of the cape. It was a steam-powered cattle ship, driven onto the rocks in a cyclone of 1907. Much of its metal was salvaged for scrap, and in World War II it was used as a bombing target. The turn-off to the cape is helpfully called Mildura Wreck Road.
3 South Muiron Island is glimpsed 15 km off the cape, with Peak Island behind it. These islands along the reef are all uninhabited nature reserves.
4 Vlamingh Head Lighthouse was completed in 1912 and de-activated in 1969 when a light was fitted to one of the naval radio towers. It's a popular place to watch the sun set over the ocean (which you can't do in Exmouth, where the sun sets behind the hills) - and indeed the sun rise, as it's one of the few places on the continent with an ocean view both ways. On top of the hill is the remains of a radar dish installed for Operation Potshot in 1942, and destroyed by a cyclone in 1945. …