Saturday 17th September
Geraldton to Jurien Bay
The road south from Geraldton winds along the coast with great views of several little hidden bays visible from the road. We got as far as Jurien Bay, and liked the look of the place. We pulled into the motor camp and found out they had a couple of vacancies so we decided to stay here. It is only about 20 km down to Cervantes and the Pinnacles, so we’ll stay here for a couple of days and visit the Pinnacles from here.
Jurien Bay is another beautiful little seaside town, very modern and built right along the seashore. Our motorcamp is right in the middle of town, but also right on the seashore. After setting up camp we had a walk out on the jetty and then along their foreshore walkway.
That night the wind got up and about midnight the first dirty squall hit. The wind kept the caravan rocking all night and about every half hour or so another rainy squall would come bashing through.
Sunday 18th September
Woke up to absolutely shit weather and realised there was no way we would be getting down to see the Pinnacles today. Nothing to do but sit it out and try again tomorrow. We had a bit of a drive round town and then booked in for another night.
Monday 19th September
The weather improved considerably over night and as the morning moved on it kept improving. While Christel and Cameron were doing their school work, I was pottering around outside when a guy strolled over and said Gidday. He then asked if we had been camping at Glenrowan in January. Glenrowan is in Victoria and was the home town for Ned Kelly, and although I was able to say we had camped there, I couldn’t remember if it was before or after we had been to Tasmania.
The guy said he was sure it was January because he could remember meeting us there. “You had a young boy with you and we gave him an Aussie hat.” It was then I remembered the guy and another couple they were with. They were members of the Victoria Coromal Caravan Owners Club. They were lovely and friendly and were able to give us heaps of tips about caravanning, seeing as at that stage we were very new to the game.
I think Geoff, the guy I was talking to, was the Vice-President of the club, and his mate Ken, was the President. It was Geoff and his wife Sheena who had given Cameron the hat, which we still have, and Ken and his wife Beverley had given us a towball lock for our van. You may remember I mentioned them in the blog at the time. While we were talking to Geoff and Sheena, Geoff rang Ken back in Melbourne and then put me on the phone. I said Gidday and that I had something of his that I had to return when we got to Melbourne. Ken cottoned on straight away who he was talking to.
It is amazing how we keep bumping into different people as we travel around. Especially those travelling in roughly the same direction as us. You might not see them for a month or 2 and then run into them again. But meeting up with Geoff again was really out of the blue. Aussie might be a big country, but it seems it’s quite a small world we live in.
After Cameron and Christel had finished school for the day, we headed off to the Pinnacles, about 40 km south. On the way we called in at the small seaside town of Cervantes, before continuing on into the Nambung National Park and the Pinnacles Desert.
The Pinnacles had been on Christel’s ‘Must Do’ list as we had seen photos of it before we left New Zealand. We hoped we weren’t going to be disappointed. On our arrival, the first people we ran into were Geoff and Sheena again. They were just leaving and were full of praise for what they had just seen.
After driving for miles through nothing but scrub, the first sight of the Pinnacles is breathtaking. It’s another occasion of words not being able to do it justice, so I’ll leave it up to the photos to tell the story. Just to give you an idea of how impressed we were, we managed to take 54 photos.
The whole area is very well set up for visitors. You are free to wander anywhere you want, and you can do a 4½ km drive through the park. The only stipulation is that you don’t climb on the pinnacles themselves. So what did we see, tourists of asian heritage standing on top of them having their photo taken.
We spent a good 2½ hours wandering around this rather peculiar landscape.
The Pinnacles are the only place in the world where these formations are found, and scientists are still trying to discover how they are formed and why they are there.
On our way back to Jurien Bay, we drove down a side road to have a look at the beach, and on the way back to the main road came across this fellow crossing the road.
It is a Shingleback Lizard, and they are quite common around this area. We stopped the car and caught him just as he was heading into the scrub at the side of the road.
Cameron gets a real kick out of seeing wildlife, and was on a real high after being able to hold the lizard. It’s really great that he is enjoying nature so much.
Tomorrow we head south again, and all going well should end up in Perth.
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