(Erik's Webhome Online)

It is estimated that the Pinnacles were formed within the last 80,000 years, since the last Great Ice Age.

    The arid place was humungous. Stretching about 17,491 ha., the park covers the entire landscape in our view. Dust was everywhere. So were the irritating flies. We had to perform the 'Great Australian Salute' every few seconds. But nothing else was more welcomed than this unique tourist attraction that provided an imagery of Egypt. No, there were no pyramids nor were there any Sphynxes. All we could see were miles and miles of rocks, natural carvings of nature. This is The Pinnacles, 250km north of Perth City, Western Australia.

    I felt the strong south-western winds blow for all its worth. The desert's great expanse awed me. Never had I seen such exquisite beauty. Interestingly, there were quite a number of vegetation growing. This is understandable as we had only set foot on the edge of Pinnacles Desert located in Nambung National Park. Sadly, we did not see any animals except for a few hawks in the sky. The sun's rays pummeled against our skin, allowing us to develop a darker tan.

    Along the way here, we had stopped at numerous places. We started off from the university at 8.00 am. Ignorant of the long journey that was ahead of us, I tried to pick up a conversation with the person sitting next to me. It was successful and finally I earned a new friend.

    Scenery after scenery drifted past. At last we were out of civilisation and the concrete jungle. We stopped for breakfast at Badgingarra, a tiny place with only a garage, a petrol station and a convenience store and of course the necessary toilets. Then we were off again. The bus driver was very entertaining. Along the way, he pointed out to us, the so called 'weeds' of Australia and jokingly said that whoever can get rid of the pests for good will become billionaires overnight. For me, they look more like pretty flowers. Indeed they are.
Historically, the flower was brought in by a lady who planted it in her house. It then began to spread, first in her garden until it finally ventured throughout Australia (except the desert areas of course). We did see a number of flowering plants (in Spring) besides the 'weed'. (I think it's called Salvation Joan, though I'm not too sure.)

    We made two stops to look at flowers. There was this flower that excited me. It's a fly catcher. I tried triggering a few traps and it was really amazing. The prey (twig in this case) is to land on the smaller petals of the flower and the sudden impact causes a stick-kind-of-stem which is red in colour to be released from below, trapping the prey in it's powerful grip. Contrarily to the impression that I've made, it's a small plant with small flowers. There were also the Blackboys that have long protruding stems sticking about vertically into the air. The other stop we made was at a shop selling dried flowers.

    We made another stop to have lunch at a petrol station. There I bought a booklet about the Pinnacles. Then we were off again. We reached the Pinnacles at about 2.00 pm, suddenly realising that it had already been 6 hours after our departure from UWA. We spent one-and-a-half-hours there, looking at stalagmite-like rocks. I took a lot of pictures throughout the trip. One great looking rock was of the shape of a human face!

    Finally there was this journey back home which took 4 hours. All in all we've travelled 679 km for 11 hours. It was real fun as some of us have faces as red as beetroots thanks to the sun, even though it was only the beginning of Spring. We reached the university after 7.00 pm. Exhausted but thrilled, we lugged ourselves back to our homes.

    Overall, the trip was exciting but at times quite boring as we sat in the bus. It was quite disappointing as there weren't many flowers, as I had hoped. No animals other than hawks and other birds were seen. Insects like the fly are better off being absent. Animals only come out in the evening as they have more sense than to brave the powerful sun in the afternoon, unlike us dumb human beings.

Note : All photos original

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