Stoat - Where?

Pinnacles United

One of the guys, Ian, had a meeting up in Jurien Bay today, so I hopped in the car to go with him and get a taste of the Australian road. Jurien Bay is pretty close as things go in Australia, being ‘only’ 3 hours north of Perth, up the coast. So far, if I had to pick a word to describe Australia, it would be ‘red’. Whether it’s the case elsewhere in the country, the roads and dirt outside the city here are a deep orangey-red colour, which everybody apart from me seems thoroughly unimpressed with. I guess it’s the same ’so what?’ attitude I have to living 20 minutes away from the 2000 year old City of Chester.

Jurien Beach is miles and miles of rugged coastline, along which I saw precisely one person. That was Ian. As far as the eye could see, there was sand, dune bushes and driftwood and nothing else. It’s a far cry from the crowding of inner city life in Japan that was the norm for me less than 2 months ago.

Because he’s a kind soul, Ian took me up to see the Pinnacles even though they were quite a detour from our route. We didn’t really know what to expect, but at the end of the 17km winding road to get to the entrance and after paying 9 bucks to get in (I don’t care what the woman says, the sign with the prices 17km earlier was very small), we rounded a corner to be faced with thousands of rocks standing like jockeys meerkats on the lookout for Prince predators.

The Pinnacles are a natural phenomenon caused by the buildup and selective erosion of limestone over long periods of time. At the end of the day, they’re only rocks, but I absolutely loved it and spent half the time hanging out of the car window like a fool. Despite not posting any for a long time, I’m still taking lots of photos and I outdid myself here with 70 photos of yellow sand, orange rocks and blue sky. They’re all unique and all totally the same. There’s a couple of the white, greater-spotted Jamie as well. It’s nice to have finally seen something that’s unique to Australia and I even managed to see emus on the way back home. I still haven’t seen any kangaroos though, despite a round trip that was over 600km. Maybe soon.