The Pinnacles

We started yesterday with a 9 klm walk around Perth's Kings Park and Botanic Gardens, one of the world's largest inner-city parks (400 hectares), 2/3 of which is native bush land. The entry to the park gave us spectacular views back to the CBD .......

... and glimpses of the Swan River ......... 

There's a couple of "Honour Avenues" in the park - avenues of eucalypts dedicated to servicemen from the World Wars who died in war service and were either buried overseas or had no known graves. These dedications were all along Lovekin Drive .........

There are 3,000 species of native flora in the botanic gardens - and they are looking their best at the moment - all in Spring flower. we are in total awe of the beauty of the plants of WA.

Our goal was to do breakfast at the well-respected Zamia Cafe in the park - but that was a crazy idea given it was Father's Day and every second Perth family was lined up hoping to do breakfast at this cafe at the same time we were!

We tried a few places around the park with no luck - but eventually struck gold at "Tiisch" on Hay Street, back in the city - so we were happy!

Our main activity for the day was our pre-booked Lumineer sunset star gazing tour to the Pinnacles Desert in the Nambung National Park, around 200klm north of Perth. We were picked up from our hotel at around 1.00pm and headed north along the Indian Ocean Drive in our brand new 15 seater 4 wheel drive van. I'd done this trip myself twenty-two years ago with a work colleague and found it memorable and amazing (though a lot less hi tech than this one) and I was so keen that Rob should experience it too!

First stop was at the remarkable Lancelin sand dunes - an amazing landscape of extensive (shifting) white sand dunes (with no vegetation) around 125 klms from Perth.

It's perfect for sandboarding here, and we all had a go - such great fun!

The view back to the Lancelin fishing village .......

Next stop was at the Nilgen lookout to see up close some of the Nature Reserve's wildflowers .....

It was quite a thrill to come across this large Western Red kangaroo, casually eating a snack from one of the plants (Parrot Bush) along the track .....

And there it was again, closer to the bus this time!

This country is amazing!

We stopped at Hangover Bay, near the Pinnacles Desert to take a closer look at the range of bush tucker and bush medicine plants growing in this region. We tried the common Warrigal Greens and salt bush and a number of others - I was really impressed with our guide's knowledge and acknowledgement of the Aboriginal elders who'd mentored him about all this. 

It was after 5.00pm by the time we got to the Pinnacles Desert in the Nambung NP - but it was definitely worth the wait!

The Pinnacles are natural limestone formations rising out of the yellow desert sands. It's believed they formed 25 - 30,000 years ago after the seas receded and left deposits of seashells that were eroded by the wind and the seas (and tree roots were involved at some stage too apparently).

Twenty-two years ago I'd seen the desert in the afternoon light - it was another thing again to see it as the sun set and dusk descended .....

It was so special to see it again with Rob - this whole place has quite a presence!

As night fell and the rain clouds gathered, our guide quickly cooked us a delicious bar-b-que dinner under the stars (with a glass of local wine) and managed to set up a large computerised telescope so we got great views of the moon and the rings of Saturn and lots more stars than we could see with the native eye, before the rain started.

Our guide/driver got us back to Perth safely (although very late) after driving for a few hours in heavy rain. It had been a fabulous and memorable outing to one of our country's most spell binding landscapes.