The Pinnacles Desert
Part of Nambung National Park, the Pinnacles Desert offers magical landscapes to the visitor. If you go there early and are the first one in the park, you get the impression to have landed on a different planet and would expect to bump into a Star Wars vessel.
Pinnacles are limestone pillars mysteriously rising from the dune sands, thousands of them giving relief to the desert and clearly contrasting with the surrounding heath.
This landscape is nowhere else to be seen and feels a bit magical: a myriad of golden pillars rising from earth, looking like tombstones or sharp-edged columns, the biggest ones being 4meters tall, as far as the eye can see…
And more surprisingly is that just part of them are visible, the majority still lying deep in the sand, waiting for the wind to blow longer and stronger for them to see the sunlight. What is this place gonna be like in 100 years from now? Nobody knows…
As we tried to understand how those limestone pillars appeared, we realized that nobody knows the answer yet… Traces of an old cemented forest? The remaining of ancient rocks eroded by the wind long time ago? Sand and shells stuck together by the rain forming rocks? The mystery remains unsolved…
Surfing on Lancelin dunes
The city of Lancelin is a pretty one, on the coast, with beaches and lovely areas to enjoy the view of the ocean. But we are not stopping here for the city nor the ocean, Oscar has something in the back of his mind… Sandboarding!
There are pretty impressive sand dunes in Lancelin and it’s common to hire a board, climb on top of the dune and slide on the white wild waves. With an angle of 45 degrees, Lancelin dunes are the biggest of Western Australia where adventurers come to get their injection of adrenalin.
So, here we go, first session of sandboarding…
First, build your sliding strategy: calculate the angles, the strength and direction of the wind, the ‘slidability’ of the sand, your trajectory…
Then, wax your board and get on the edge of the dune to initiate the launch.
Slide! and most important: keep standing up!
Failure to turn the board, balance is getting harder to keep and the fall is pending…
Boom! Face in the dune and sand in the mouth for an unexpected landing!
The hardest part is actually to climb up the dune again and again, with the wind blowing in your face, but he will keep trying until his face is covered with sand… Like children in the sand, we enjoy those last free days in the wild.
On our way down south, we stop in a lovely city called Guilderton, last stop before Perth. We enjoy the quietness and scenery of the place, where the Moore river meets the ocean and gives the visitor a wonderful range of colors to see…
Tomorrow we will reach civilization again, traffic, fancy people (as we arrive in town for the Melbourne Cup weekend!)… and we feel that it’s gonna be the end of the wild west coast we experienced so far.
Travelling with our home on our back, through wild red untamed landscapes as been a wonderful experience. Australian West Coast is definitely worth vagabonding into if you’re into nature and postcards’ sceneries!