The Pinnacles

The pinnacles are limestone formations found in the Nambung national park about 14km south of the town of Cervantes about 200km north of Perth. I’d highly recommend Cervantes as a base to stay if your coming up this way to see wildflowers and/or the pinnacles, I’ve been here for 5 days now and it’s very laid back, a little windy perhaps but beautiful weather.

I’ve visited the pinnacles twice since I’ve been here, the first time was just after dawn and the early sun made both the sand and the pinnacles glow a real golden yellow colour. The second time I visited I was there before dawn and it was also very cloudy and overcast, it made for two very different sets of pictures but I’ll be mixing them up in here. Predawn I had an interesting experience, I was up before 5 and sunrise wasn’t until just after 6, so I was having a coffee and watching the news on tv but I could hear something outside over the news. I went out and recorded it and since then I’ve heard it every morning, it’s the first bird making noise starting well before dawn but I haven’t managed to see what it is yet. Turn your speakers up and have a listen while you scroll through the pictures there’s a little wind noise in the background but it’s not too distracting.

“Early morning bird”

 

The sun wasn’t quite up yet, just enough light to provide a bit of a glow and the clouds were looking a little menacing.

Predawn the pinnacles make for some interesting silhouettes. There’s a wide variety in the limestone structures with some pinnacles being smooth while others are weathered and jagged.

Here you can clearly see that layers of sand were laid down a long time ago and now they are weathering at different rates.

These pink and grey galahs were hanging around both days I was there and they were being great models, I was fooling around saying “that’s it flaunt it, push it, act like you own it, be sexy birds, now give me the angry look, pout for me, nice work” Luckily at that time of day no one was around to see and hear me.

In the end I had over 150 pictures of galahs from about every angle possible.

The pinnacles area is quite large but you can drive on the track stopping at the little parking bays to explore along the way, there’s also a discovery centre here with lots of information about the pinnacles as they get bus loads of visitors, about 250,000 a year. I was never there during opening times though so I don’t know what it’s like.