Pinnacles Desert @ Nambung National Park

Location: Pinnacles Drive, via Nambung National Park, Cervantes, 6511
Coordinate: S30°36.2580′ E115°09.3182′
Operating Hour: The Pinnacles Desert Discovery Centre is open 9:30am to 4:30pm.

While visiting Western Australia, we could visited places with different climate. From cold weather at the south, we have been travelling to the north till the desert. Along the way, there were signboard this places be flooded with wild flowers during winter season, which it is just beginning of the season. We were told as well that the scenary change when the season change, so it won't be the same whenever one visit the same place during other season. How nice it is, and that's the reason why I like country having 4 seasons.

Though it was quite a long journey for us, but we still like it as when we driving, we could see lot of beautiful scenary along the way. When we reach the Pinnacles Desert, we need to buy an entrance ticket per car. There are 2 paths, one where we can follow the trail on foot, and another we can drive the car along the path provided to the desert.

Though we drove our car through the desert, we could still able to park the car at designated area, as long as it didn't blocking other car from keep moving. We did park our car, and took some nice photos there, as shown on the photo above. There was a group of chinese speaking tourist, and they took picture with our rented car. We heard that one of them said "I wanna take picture with this Ferrari!!!". We burst into laughing when get into the car.

The impressive landscapes and peculiar stone formations of the Pinnacles Desert were originated several millions years ago. The material of these stone mounds came from sea shells that were broken-down into lime-rich sand. Later, this sand was blown inland by natural elements, like the wind, creating sand dunes. Step by step, rainfalls caused the lime to seep to the bottom of the dunes, generating the formation of limestone.

The limestone formations of the Pinnacles vary in size and shape; some are as small as a mouse whilst many are as big as 3.5m high. These unusually shaped rocks have been likened to tombstones, termite mounds and even fingers. The Pinnacles Desert is best seen at dawn or dusk when they cast long, strange shadows over the rippling yellow sand dunes.

From the Pinnacles, we also able to see the great ocean. And along the journey, we were driving along the coastal road. On our way later on to Sand Dunes, we were using the new highway (we guess so). The raod doesn't exist in the map of our Garmin's GPS device, but we just follow the road all along until we reach to the town, Lancelin. It was really beautiful journey for us.

Pinnacles Desert was a candidate for the 7 natural wonders of Oceania (http://sevennaturalwonders.org/oceania/pinnacles-desert). It is also voted as #11 of 131 things to do in Perth by LonelyPlanet.

More information regarding Pinnacles Desert can be found from the following:
http://www.westernaustralia.com/en/Pages/Attraction.aspx?pid=9001684

http://www.discoverwest.com.au/western_australia/pinnacles_desert.html

http://www.7wonders.org/wonders/oceania/australia/western-australia/pinnacles-desert.aspx