4/27/26: One Corner of the Vast & Barren Western Australia

Oops, I'd planned on telling you next about our stop in Fremantle following our tour of Wadjemup, the stunning island home to magnificent beaches and also to one of Australia's darkest chapters. However, I can't find the draft post - ugh. Instead, let's fast-forward to the next day, when Steven and I drove north of Perth to explore some of the national parks.

A billboard on the outskirts of Perth promoted being water-wise, something that Coloradans should get behind in our severe drought.

What amusing and highly unusual light poles on highway ramps!

Steven and I had only ever seen road trains when we visited the back roads of Northern Australia in 2015. They're described as a massive heavy-duty truck pulling multiple trailers, weighing over 200 tons and up to 53.5 meters or 175 feet long. Road trains are essential for transporting fuel, freight, and livestock across the remote, sparsely populated distances of the Australian Outback where railways are scarce. 

There had been no services for 100 km in the remote area, so when we saw the sign for a roadhouse, the Australian term for a rest area, we turned off right away. A delicious lunch-sized quiche and a large coffee were only US10 - a steal in our minds, especially considering what a godforsaken place it was.

Your smile for the day!

We figured that police were doing roadside sobriety checks because it was a holiday weekend.

Yes, the area was truly rural!

In over two hours of driving, we'd seen only two roadhouses, and nary a store, school, home, village, government building, etc, and only a few cars. It was unsettling being so isolated. Thankfully, we had no medical emergency or car issues while driving on Highway 1 since leaving Perth. The highway, the longest national highway in the world, is a 14,500-kilometer network of roads looping around the continent, connecting every mainland state capital except Canberra, the national capital.

Spotting the bright orange flowers of the Acorn Banksia shrubs, native to Western Australia, was a pleasant diversion.

Close to 250 kms north of Perth, there was finally a turnoff for Lesueur National Park, the first park we wanted to explore because it was described as a biodiversity hotspot with a variety of trails leading to an astounding 900 species of flora! However, the mostly dirt with some gravel road was rutted and extremely tough to drive, so we gave up after driving a dozen km on the deserted road. No amount of trails and flora was worth getting stranded in the middle of nowhere. 

Instead, we headed toward Nambung National Park near the Indian Ocean, to stop at Lake Thetis, one of the few places in the world that has living stromatolites.

However, the drive meant we had to go through the beach town of Jurien Bay and then head southbound toward Perth along the Turquoise Coast. Fun signs said the town would get our 'seal' of approval (because of nearby seals), and it would get us hook, line, and sinker, with appropriate images of course!

I guess we shouldn't have been surprised that there were no other cars in the parking lot when we arrived. Steven took the opportunity to relax in the car while I walked along the boardwalk.

As stromatolites were descendants of Earth's earliest lifeforms, park visitors were asked to protect the fragile structures by staying on the path. The faint rose-hued Glasswort was a type of succulent that thrived in high-salinity areas like salt marshes.

The boardwalk covered the blister mat, a living community with bacteria in the sediment's top layers that release oxygen to form 'sand bubbles' on the surface. Hence the blister mat term, or crenulate mat, its scientific term.

The rock-like platforms and domes were both stromatolites, but were built by different types of cyanobacteria, which is why they had different shapes. Because the lake was 1.5 times saltier than the ocean, it supported very few predators, which allowed the microbial communities to survive for thousands of years.

The lake had both stromatolites, which were built in layers, and thrombolites, which were clotted structures. Think of them as being microbial cousins! When we visited Newfoundland several years ago, we saw boulder-sized thrombolites.

Stromatolites were once widespread, but they are now only found in isolated places where conditions are right, and there are few animals to graze them. Three areas in south and southwestern Western Australia are internationally significant for their variety of stromatolite sites. One site, Pilbara, has 3,400 million-year-old stromatolites!

Clearly, the cormorants weren't bothered by the salty water.

While driving around southwestern Australia for two weeks, we saw plenty of these handy signs when leaving large parks, reminding foreign tourists to drive on the left side. 

Anyone care to hazard a guess what these images signified? The answer is down below!

Though we'd seen several road train and kangaroo signs, we saw neither of the real thing so far that day.

Further along the highway was a Western Australia Black Spot Project Sign, which was new to us. It was an official government road sign used to mark locations receiving safety funding because of past crashes. Once again, I wish there were similar signs in North America to help distracted drivers.                                                                                                                              

Answer for question above: Don Quixote, written by Miguel de Cervantes, because the hamlet's name was Cervantes. The ridiculously small community was the gateway for the forest of limestone pillars in the Pinnacles Desert, but we still couldn't find the Nambung National Park Visitors Centre, where the desert was located.

We gave up after a few tries and were pleasantly surprised by the long stretch of sand dunes en route to the desert.

Our first glimpse of the park's desert was the thousands of eroded limestone spires rising from sandy ground.

The desert holly looked just as prickly as the green form we were more familiar with.

Even though the Pinnacles, one of WA's most captivating and surreal landscapes, attracts visitors from all over the world, it still seemed odd to have signs in German and French.

Our first view of the otherworldly spires jutting out from the golden desert was jaw-dropping. It made us feel like we'd just landed on another planet, yet it had only been a few hours' drive, albeit with several detours, from Perth!

Sometimes, when you think you've seen it all ...  nature still astounded us!

We've traveled the world, but how exciting to still be wowed by such an out-of-this-world sight!

The sights above were even before we started the Pinnacles Desert Loop Drive! Soon, we came across the traditional green form of holly, which I always associate with Christmas.

We were so enthralled with the golden hues, we couldn't stop oohing and ahhing. As you'll notice, I couldn't stop taking pictures, either!

I read that scientists still couldn't be certain of the desert's origin, but one popular theory was that it's a compacted seashell layer that once covered the plain and, over millennia, had slowly eroded.

John: As we meandered through the park, I kept thinking of how much you'd loved to have been here to snap photos from every amazing angle. The desert was truly a photographer's dream!

Feel free to call me a curmudgeon, but I had an issue with parents allowing their children to scamper and clamber all over the pillars, as there had been lots of signage forbidding exactly that because it could cause irreplaceable damage, let alone severe injuries. 

As we drove slowly through the desert and strolled among the pillars, I kept wondering what the state's Aboriginal people might have thought of these spellbinding shapes. Did they have any religious or spiritual significance to them?

We were lucky that the one-way track was easy to drive on, except for one driver who drove as slowly as molasses and refused to enter one of the turnouts!

I don't think I was able to capture the sand's orangey golden shade in this spot, so please just use your imagination!

As we drove further along the loop, some of the rocks had a blackish tint to them

Shots from the aptly-named Desert Viewpoint:

Views as we continued the loop drive: Note how it was devoid of any animals.

As we neared the end of the fascinating drive, we noticed many of the pillars suddenly had holes or crevices that resembled honeycombs.

With our final view of the exhilarating Pinnacles, we reflected on how lucky we'd been that day, weather-wise. It had poured cats and dogs pretty much the entire time we were driving, but stopped at Lake Thetis and almost miraculously again on arrival at the Pinnacles. Within five minutes of leaving, however, the heavens opened up once again!

As we headed toward Perth along the Indian Ocean Highway, we passed many areas that had recently suffered extensive fire damage.

We'd also planned to visit Yanchep National Park, famous for its koalas, which were introduced from the eastern states in 1938. However, the various detours and the immense distances between parks had taken up more time than we'd planned, so we decided to visit the park about a week later on our return from the interior of southwestern WA. The change in the topography was startling from both the desert and the barren landscape we'd experienced earlier that day along Highway 1.

Next post: Back to Fremantle after all!

Posted on August 5th, 2016, from Denver's heat dome. I think I speak for many when I say we're getting mighty sick of these scorching hot days, one after another, with barely a break. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones, and try to stay cool if you're in a hot zone.