Coastal road trip WA

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Second week in WA we were very lucky to be able to borrow Tarryn's car to take a trip up the coast. We drove north from Perth up the coast road called Indian Oceon Drive. First day we drove to Cervantes, which is a small village with a lovely white sand beach backed by sand dunes where we had a nice walk. Here we visited the Pinnacles, which are strange weathered limestone features sticking up from the surrounding sandy desert. We were there in the evening light, which gave the place a strange unearthly glow and was very atmospheric. It was nice and quiet wandering amongst them waiting for the sunset. We also visited Lake Thetis near there, walked along the boardwalk and saw the stomatolites and some kangaroos. (Stomatolites are the oldest single cell living thing on earth, these are 3500 years old......they resemble rings of concrete. They live there because the lake water is too salty for any of their predators to survive)

Then we drove on towards Kalbarri, where there are nice red sandstone rock formations.....but we got fed up with driving before we got there! Western Australia is really very very big, and there are vast areas looking very similar without many places imbetween. (Glad of the earlier advice to fly rather than drive to Coral Bay). Had we been here about a month earlier we would have caught the spring wildflower season when the desert blooms, but now there were only a few flowers left. One lovely thing to see is the trees with bright orange flowers in them. The orange flowers bloom right through christmas. (Apparantly these flowers are a parasite and not the actual tree's flowers.) Instead of driving all the way to Kalbarri, we stopped instead at Dongara, which is a small fishing town with a river and more nice sandy beaches and sand dunes. We had a cycle ride by the river and went swimming from the beautiful South Cove. Cut our swim a bit short when another bather pointed out a sting ray in the water. The guest house owner called us to see a snake in the garden. She said it was a poinonous snake, and it was eating a lizard. After finishing its meal it slithered quickly away. We still havent seen any sharks (fortunately), unless you count the one I ate battered at the fish and chip shop! It tasted very good.

After this we headed back south and drove to Lancellin. This is another resort with lovely white sands backed by sand dunes, where we walked along the beach and swam. And after Lancellin, the final drive was back to Perth again.

Friday evening we went out for dinner with Richard and Jenny,who is my second cousin, another relative I have discovered here who moved to Australia from Zimbabwe.

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