We had to make a tough decision as to whether to get on the road or stick around Perth for a few hours to catch some of the acrobatic Red Bull planes do their thing on the Swan River. Fortunately we were able to catch a bit of the action on tele the day before when one unlucky pilot managed to crash his plane into the river – wasn’t live or anything but gave us enough to go by. Giving this a miss we forged onward to Cervantes and the famous and poorly named - Pinnacles. The free web dictionary defines Pinnacle as:
1. Architecture A small turret or spire on a roof or buttress.
2. A tall pointed formation, such as a mountain peak.
3. The highest point; the culmination. – so one might expect to see some large pointy rocks towering out of the ground when in fact, most are sort of 4-8 foot tall and far from towering - they are pointy though. Although somewhat mis-named they are indeed intriguing as they apparently don’t exist anywhere else! A small hike from the parking lot opens up into 2-3 different fields of nothing but oddly spaced pointy rock formations jutting out of the ground (and a few cars and overly well-proportioned individuals making short jaunts from their Hummer or Landcruiser to stand amongst the rocks and take a photo.) It's postulated that they have been formed from ancient tree trunks which have been turned into limestone over time - why here and no where else is anyone's guess. All in all – interesting and odd but enough to take in over 5 to 10 minutes and move on – so we did. Another couple hundred kilometres up the highway we pulled in just past Geraldton – a seemingly nice small town with massive, well-windowed houses towering over the highway gazing out into the Indian Ocean. We had a site at Drummond Cove – 16 kms outside of town and we managed to get there just as the sun was setting – a great way to end a travel day!
3. The highest point; the culmination. – so one might expect to see some large pointy rocks towering out of the ground when in fact, most are sort of 4-8 foot tall and far from towering - they are pointy though. Although somewhat mis-named they are indeed intriguing as they apparently don’t exist anywhere else! A small hike from the parking lot opens up into 2-3 different fields of nothing but oddly spaced pointy rock formations jutting out of the ground (and a few cars and overly well-proportioned individuals making short jaunts from their Hummer or Landcruiser to stand amongst the rocks and take a photo.) It's postulated that they have been formed from ancient tree trunks which have been turned into limestone over time - why here and no where else is anyone's guess. All in all – interesting and odd but enough to take in over 5 to 10 minutes and move on – so we did. Another couple hundred kilometres up the highway we pulled in just past Geraldton – a seemingly nice small town with massive, well-windowed houses towering over the highway gazing out into the Indian Ocean. We had a site at Drummond Cove – 16 kms outside of town and we managed to get there just as the sun was setting – a great way to end a travel day!
With only 150-odd kms to go the next day, we had a leisurely breakfast and headed up the highway en route to Kalbarri – a town that appears to have developed around the naturalistic attributes of the Murchison River, its surrounding gorges and the lively coast which has created intricate sculptures in the sandstone and boasts a few impressive headlands and cliffs. We spent the afternoon playing on the beach, snorkelling in the Blue Hole – a natural lagoon just outside of town, and touring some of the more recommended sights like Eagle Gorge. The sandstone is incredibly textured and multi-coloured – sort of like a reddish version of vanilla and chocolate swirly ice-cream but rough like sand-paper and occasionally offering a waffle-like appearance from different erosive effects. Famished and ready for some fresh fish, we ventured back to town and managed to find one of the few fresh seafood retailers in town – a bit strange for a coastal town seemingly well-positioned for oodles of good fishing. We managed to pick up some Barramundi (probably not local) and Spanish Mackerel – which when done up Morfar-style was the beezkneez and gobbled up without much ado.
I’ve managed to find work up at Broome in the A+E for a couple of weeks in early May and as a result have been given a series of hospital forms to fill out for all the red-tape allowing me through the hallowed halls and walls of the hospital. It really makes you come to dislike considerably the misfits of the world who let their perversions get the better of them as not only does it create a lot more paper work for those of us without criminally maladjusted behaviours but also makes it more expensive. I think I’ve had to pay for a police check three times now! WA is the first place I’ve had to do a formalized working with children form and that costs a whopping $50 bucks! It took me a half a day to fill in the necessary forms and see the local Justice of Peace for my 100 point ID check, plus the cost of express post…Alas it’s all done – now I can enjoy the next couple of weeks without a burden on my shoulders. With what time we had left in the day today we headed into the dirt roads of the Kalbarri and visited the famous (at least in the tourist brochures) Natural Window – a collection of sandstone slabs which have formed a window like frame looking out onto a canyon of the Murchison River – a classic photo op sort of place with impressive scenery all round. From there we passed some faltering Wicked Campervans en route to the Z-bend – another deep canyon with a distinctive alphabetic-like caricature and dead straight fractures in the rock like someone has taken their chisel and precisely marked out a section of the canyon/river. With ample canyoning vistas in our memory banks, we embarked for home, the pool and another feast with which to wind up the day. Tomorrow – a canoe down the Murchison and then onward to Monkey Mia – dolphins – here we come! 
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