The Pinnacles and Cervantes


Today was one of those driving day, in fact most of the next few days will "just" driving days, so be prepared for little to talk about.


Today was one of those driving day, in fact most of the next few days will "just" driving days, so be prepared for little to talk about.

I woke up this morning in Perth with the only real "thing to do" was pick up a rental car and head north. I had planned on stopping in the town of Cervantes which lay on the coast north of Perth about 4 hours. I knew I would have all day to drive so after lunch, I packed and made my way downtown to pick up my rental car. I made it about 3 blocks from from my hotel when I passed another car rental agency that I had heard cheap rates. All their cars seemed new, so I guessed I was safe. I went in and told them I was on my way to their competitor, and if they could better the deal I would buy from them. And that is just what they did. Well to be honest they just matched the deal, but at least now i didn't have an hour's walk ahead of me.
Sadly the only car they had which was available was a yellow Japanese Import. I looked at it as a positive, and thought more people can see me now, which hopefully means no one will drive into me. So after leaving the car, walking down to get lunch, and having chat with the locals, I got in my little yellow car. I decided that this car needed a name, so I dubbed it the "Lemon Smash" after the Australian word for lemonade, which most people can tell you is my Coke substitute.
So seeing the next four hours were just me driving with no radio stations, I thought I would tell you all about the Road Trains. Road Trains are as much a part of Australia as kangaroos, and koalas. They are only to be found in the outback, and are more likely to kill you than all the poisonous snakes, spiders, and dingos, combined. The Road Train is best described three eighteen wheelers, all attached to one massive cabin. Occasionally in the states you will see two attached, but Australia pushes the limit to three. They stop for no person, animal, or foreign tourist in little japanese import car. They barrel down the outback roads at top speeds, morning, noon, and night, and if you see them coming at you from the other side you usually have to pull off the road. Pulling off the road to avoid them is no small feat because the roads are lined with small pebbles which are incredible difficult to drive on. However, the good news is that the roads have been improved a great deal over the past few years, and you now have two lanes on each side that are large enough to accommodate cars going in both directions. However that just means for me, that every time I pass one, each of traveling at 120 kms, I have to hold onto the wheel of my little import for dear life hoping that it doesn't get blown off the road like a scrap piece of paper.
However as the road saga goes today, I was lucky (somewhat) to be going the way I was. Because in front of me was by far the largest truck I have ever seen, which was being hauled down the Great Northern Highway. It was lucky because I was behind it and not in front of it. It was clearly a mining truck headed north, but in the back of another truck it took up a lane an a half. This time around it was the road trains that had to flee for there lives into the gravel. I was completely in awe of the size of this beast which was treating the road trains the way they treated me for the last couple hours. However, all the protection was lost when the massive beast slowed down allowing everyone to pass him. This may seem like a simple passing maneuver, however when the road trains in front of me had to drive on the gravel to pass the massive truck, they created a dust storm that I had to drive through. Keeping in mind this car of mine is powered by a 3 liter rubber-band, I had to floor it to gain any assemblence of speed. As I passed it the truck I had to drive through this dust storm into complete 0 visibility, not knowing if there was another car, or road train or anything head straight at me. There was about 2 agonizingly long seconds before I emerged on the other end out of the dust.

(Note the size or the road train, that hadn't even reached the beast yet)

From there I headed to Cervantes. A quite little town right on the coast, and I mean right on the coast. And I really mean a little town! The one thing that you quickly start to realize about Australia when you are in WA is the distance between places, and the distance between populations. Across Australia, what is considered a big city may be just 300,000 people. Now I realize 300,000 is a lot of people, but hardly a big city. I don't think of Memphis as being a "big" city, and that is over a million. Another think about this area is just the simple fact that you are constantly surrounded by land that has never been touched. Yes there are fields, but touched in the sense of human inhabitants, that is rare. Cervantes, is a good example of that. I am not sure where the town gets its income other than farming and those who feed off of tourism, but I don't think its a problem, because the population had to only be a couple hundred. The biggest draw to Cervantes are The Pinnacles.
The Pinnacles are the result of millions of years of erosion on the land and limestone, resulting in unusual columns that remain the local sands. However, having known the Pinnacles were best seen at night I made my way to the ocean. Perth not really being on the ocean, I had yet to really make my way "all" the way to the other side of Australia, and here was my chance. Sadly when I arrived on the beach, the winds were quite strong, and my plan to spend a couple hours sitting and enjoying the indian ocean blew away.


After I spent a few minutes getting sand blown, I went to find my accommodations for the night. I had passed the street as I first came into town, but then I saw another backpackers that looked newer and a lot nicer. I had already called and booked my room at the other place, so I decided it wouldn't be fair to go to the other one. So I passed this backpackers, and headed to the street I saw. I turned on the street and realized it began to curve back to the main road. And what was at the end of the road where I had just been, the backpackers I was admiring earlier. My keen sense of direction never noticed that the corner sign was the same street name as the one coming into town.
I checked into the backpackers, and unloaded my stuff into the room. I got back into my car, headed to the local small, but surprisingly well stocked store, where I purchased my travel food, PB&J! And some Tim Tams! Mmmmmmmm! From the store I headed out to the Pinnacles.
The Pinnacles Desert as it was called was located in the Nambung National Park. The park went along the ocean, going inland for about few miles but stretching south for at least 30 miles. At one point I pulled over to take a picture of the beautiful white sand dunes, and then made my way to the Pinnacles as the Sun began to set.



I have to say that I was expecting a few of these pinnacles but instead what I found was a sea of them. There had to have been thousands of them in all shapes and sizes. I took the good photos with my medium format camera, and then noticed that my sunset was about to be cut short by approaching clouds. I darted around as much as I could to get the photos I wanted. I also noticed a interesting thing, that because I had all this photo equipment with me. That whenever I would stop unload the tripod, the medium format camera, and the filters, ect. people would stop and take out their camera's too. This happened at least four times as I drove along the path. It just goes to show if you play the part you don't have to be the part.
Before I knew it the Sun ducked behind the approaching storm and the photos were over. It was at that point that I realized I hadn't taken any photos with my digital. That is why most of these photos are not that clear, the light was very low at the time. I decided to stay and watch the sun completely disappear. The Pinnacles at dusk with the storm approaching had a very eerie feel to them, one which really made me appreciate the singularity of this moment for me. The only thing that took away from the moment was the movie being shot on the back of a truck that passed by, with the whole crew, and supporting cast following in about six more cars. Leave it to hollywood to ruin a moment for me half way around the world.


Once the sunlight had left, I hoped in my car and left the Pinnacle Desert. As I left, I passed the film trucks, crew and stars, all sitting around drinking their coffees and oblivious to the beauty around them. Happy as I could be, I went racing down the road headed out of the national park. Having not driven in Australia since I arrived I failed to remember one key aspect of driving at night. As I was singing and paying little attention to the road ahead of me, a large female kangaroo followed by her joey darted right in front of my tiny car. To say I slammed on the breaks really doesn't describe the act. My foot practically went through the brake, and right through to the pavement. Everything in the car went flying forward, I am surprised that the body of the car didn't dislocate from the axle. As all this was taking place the kangaroos did nothing to avoid their possible death. They just kept hopping along, same path, same speed, same disregard for oncoming traffic. The mother was safe, but the joey was right in front of my car, as I came bearing down on it. Luckily my car weighed little more than a pile of rocks, so bringing it to a dead stop took much less distance than I would have ever imagined. I missed the joey by a matter of inches, and I am quite sure that I may have hit his tail. And to make matters worse they didn't seem to care at all. They just made it few feet in to the brush stopped at looked at me with this expression that said, "Oh, hello we didn't see you there!" Mean while I was a few heartbeats away from a coronary. It was at that point that I looked out into the brush, and started to see more and more kangaroos. They were everywhere. Of course it was too dark to take a picture, other than this. Trust me that dot on the hill is a kangaroo.

Not much to tell about the rest of the day. I made it back to the backpackers driving very very slowly, with a newly developed fear of driving at night in Australia.

That night, the storm finally moved in and taught me just what these Western Australian storms I had heard about was all about. The heavens must have dumped 10 inches of rain in just a couple hours. But what it was going to do was make for a beautiful day to drive in the next day.

Posted: Sun - September 7, 2003 at 12:18 AM        

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