Western Australia's Sand Box

Though most of our drive was up the western coastline with many stops along sandy beaches, we did head "inland". And even in the Australian sunburned bush, away from the ocean, we found plenty of sand.

The first stop on the tour was in Lancelin. A little coastline town, but we weren't there for the ocean. Our first day of driving saw many mobile sand dunes along the wind blown  highway, even though the ocean was nowhere in sight. And in Lanceline, there's an oasis of white sand when people go four wheel driving and sandboarding. It's snowboarding for the freezing temperature challenged. Our boards were just ones you sit on, but we waxed up our boards and scooted down, ending up with sand filled pockets and sand filled everything.

Next stop was the pinnacles. Scientists still don't agree on the origin of these strangely shaped rock formations. Some say they are calcified tree roots from ancient forests, they were cracks caused by vegetation that were filled with quartz, or the aboriginal story that they are the fingers of little girls who wandered into this forbidden area and were lost.

Damo and his sophisticated writing tool he used to draw the story of the creation of the Pinnacles in the sand.

Kalbarri National Park was also one of our inland adventures. We drove in on the dirt road, revealing a blanket of fog beneath the Easter sunrise.

Kalbarri National Park features the Murtchison River gorge. The Murtchison River is the longest river in WA, and the red sandstone makes this one of the hottest places in WA. As we headed north, the sand kept getting redder and redder, from the white sand of lancelin, to the yellow-orange of the pinnacles and the iron red of the pilbarra.

The contrast of the red rock and white gum.

Nature's Window

We spent Easter morning hiking and fueled by hot cross buns. Hot cross buns are an Easter thing, and I learned everything I know about them from Kyla, who makes an annual hot cross bun pilgrimage across Perth.

 

Turns out that Kalbarri was only a teaser for the gorges yet to come...