What a busy day!!! No wonder we were tired at the end of our days while we were on the road.
We started our day with the promised tour with Don of his Hi-Vallee Farm. He sure knows his plants and he was keen to share his knowledge with us. I won’t show off my lack of knowledge by trying to name all of these amazing plants but I will share some of the best we saw with you.
Don and Joy had a really amazing Dryandra in a vase on their kitchen table the night before and I was hoping to see it growing, but I found out that it was actually a dried one and that particular one flowers earlier in the year. We might need to do another visit to them in April/May to see some more of their nuggets of beauty.
They were such great hosts and asked if we would like to share a cuppa with them and their friends before we went on our way, so we found ourselves drinking a cuppa and having a lovely chat with them while the dogs played in the back yard rather than getting on with our touring .
We checked our a few of the council campsites as we drove our way around today. We also passed the Emu Downs solar farm and wind farm as we made our way back towards the coast.
At Cervantes we ate lobster for lunch by the seaside. The Lobster Shack is quite a business. They have the lobster fishing boats, a fish factory, the restaurant, and tours as well. The food was great.
The local mens shed is just around the corner from the Lobster Shack and I was interested to see that they use some of the local ropes from the boats to make items such as mats and baskets. If they had been open I might have been tempted.
We drove out to Thirsty Point to have a look at the lovely beach
before we headed for the Pinnacles. This was one of our “have to do this” items as we had seen so many pictures of them over the years and we were suitably impressed.
The visitor centre in the Pinnacles National Park was pretty informative – given that the scientists don’t actually know the full story about how the Pinnacles are formed. They also had some really great books and crafts. I could have taken a whole lot of metal sculpture home with me if I only had the space.
Then we drove into the park. I am pretty sure that if this area was in SA we would have had no choice but to walk in on a set path, but here in WA we were allowed to drive in through the area and there were numerous opportunities to park. We could walk wherever we wanted among the pinnacles. I had always imagined that there were just a few Pinnacles – so I was amazed to see the area covered and the number of them in all kinds of varying colours , sizes and shapes.
I was also surprised that birds like to use them for nesting and we saw proof that the galahs are one of the species that love to nest in them. This galah was set on staying put and happy to have his picture taken.
As the day started to get a bit longer we still hadn’t resolved where to stay. We had seen lots of great campsites early in the day, but they weren’t really in the direction we wanted to be going (towards Perth). In the end we decided to head inland again to the little town of Dandaragan. Here we found a lovely local oval where there are a number of flat sites (some with power). There are also hot showers, a free washing machine, a book exchange and BBQ nearby. An extra bonus was that the local sports club have Friday night fundraiser meals to raise money for the community groups. We were able to get ourselves a great meal, enjoy some excellent country hospitality, get to know the locals a bit and support the Dandaragan tennis club. A win win win situation for us. Then we just walked back across the sports ground, hopped into the van and went to sleep. There were only three vehicles in the place for the night and it was beautifully quiet.
Luvapuzzle 