Denial Bay

Denial Bay is a small community of people some 12 kilometres by sealed road North West of Ceduna. The Denial Bay area's first major permanent settlement was created by William McKenzie in 1889. During the settlement's early years a ship's landing was built to on load and offload farming produce and the necessities for the early pioneer's daily lives. This was later known as Mac's landing. Ingeniously, the transport and loading of wheat and farm produce was achieved by means of driving wagons out onto the beach at low tide and manhandling the farm goods onto the ship's landing - essentially a platform surrounded by the sea at high tide. At high tide ships obligingly moored next to the landing and the farm produce was then loaded onto sailing ships for export to Adelaide. The reverse procedure applied to offloading the necessities for the daily lives of the first European settlers to the area. Unlike in the early years Denial Bay is now a minor settlement and has been overtaken by Ceduna as the major settlement for the far west of South Australia. During the last 10 years Oyster Farming has proven to be a growth industry for the town and perhaps again we will see the resurgence of a positively thriving Denial Bay. Denial Bay's waters and the whole of the Far West Coast of South Australia offer unrivalled pristine clean waters for Oyster Farming, and no doubt this will assure the future of the Oyster farming industry.