While you are driving from Margaret River to Whitchcliff through Bussell Highway you have no idea you are nearby the largest private collection of seashells that Western Australia has.
The property of Peter and Kathy contains an entire room full of seashells ; they did convert this part of the house into a museum managed by Kathy. There is probably everything the underwater world can offer into this unic place full of products from the ocean ; starfishes, corals, dry sharks, jaws, shells of all shapes and sizes from Margaret River to Broome but also from far north Queensland or the Fidji. Owning more than 40,000 pieces from all over the world, Peter has neatly been collecting them over the past seventy-two years. He has been given his time to get as many pretty shells from his native land as possible in order to sell them or swap them into an international network of private owners.
While they were raising their children, Peter was working full-time in order to support his family and was diving by himself from 10.00pm to 2.00am everyday to get enough South-West seashells to supply his customers’ demands, Kathy said. Thanks to the raise funds from selling his western australian shells, Peter was able to invest into new ones for his own private collection.
Over their past fifty years of marriage, the couple has made this collection grow big and never travelled to achieve it. Everything has been done by mail and still remains that way. Most rare and protected the shells are, harder it is to get them into WA.
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