Cossack is a popular tourism destination given its proximity to the ocean, freshwater, and distance from the North West Coastal Highway.

Tourists are able to camp at Cossack or stay in the historic buildings, by booking through the NYFL, which manages and operates the town site.

[2] In May 1863, Walter Padbury landed his stock at the mouth of the Harding River near the present site of Cossack.

Many small boats off the Port Walcott coast dived for pearl shell during the 1860s using Aboriginal labour, including women and children.

In that year a parliamentary select committee recommended the closure of several pearling banks in the area due to depletion.

[9] Wool bales and pearls were loaded on to a lighter for transport to ships 3 mi (4.8 km) offshore which took the cargo to England.

Inhabitants of the town in the early twentieth century included Greeks and other Europeans, Japanese, Malays, Timorese, Koepangers and Aru Islanders.

[11] In 1913 a leprosarium was established on the other side of the river[10] (Butcher's Inlet[12]) known as the Lazarette,[13] and gazetted as a quarantine reserve.

[14] It was at a time when many Aboriginal people who were thought to have leprosy or other infectious diseases were sent to lock hospitals and leprosariums.

The vegetation is mainly grass, spinifex and low shrub, with occasional trees (mangroves) along watercourses and in gullies.

The site of the former town is defined by Nanny Goat Hill, Tien Tsin Lookout, the hilly ground to the north-east and north-west, and Butcher Inlet to the east and south-east.

[18][17] Past the townsite, the road winds up to the Reader Head Lookout, from which sweeping views of the surrounding coastline can be seen.

Those buried in the Japanese cemetery were mainly divers and others involved with the pearling industry; others, including many Aborigines, were lost at sea.

The first interment in the cemetery is believed to have taken place in 1869, when a man died while walking to Port Walcott in January and was buried there.