Trans-Australia Trip: Cervantes WA

Our trip from Geraldton to Cervantes was along the coast where we passed some pretty (in lookin' nice) small coastal fishing communities with beach shacks along the way and a lot of head wind that knocked back our fuel consumption quite a bit, but we made it to Cervantes by lunch time. Cervantes is also a small coastal village with crayfishing as its main industry and tourism as it is only 16 Kms from there to the Nambung National Park where the Pinnacles are situated. Cervantes was named after a whaling ship that was wrecked nearby in 1844 and can still be seen under the water to this day.

We had lunch and headed out for the Pinnacles but on our way we stopped off at Lake Thetis that is one of a few places now in the world where Stomatolites and Thrombolites survive because of the high saltiness of the water that keeps predators at bay. They are said to be 3,500 years old, yet they are only babies as fossils of them have been found in 3,400 million(?) years old rock - exactly the same, I wonder why the ones in Lake Thetis haven't evolved?

Lake Thetis near Cervantes

Close up of Stromatolite or is it a Thrombolite

Official explanation of the microbial communities

From there we drove to Nambung NP to see the Pinnacles (but I'm going to leave that for the next update) and after we had seen them we then drove back to Cervantes and took an unmarked side track in the NP towards the ocean. When we reached the ocean and hopped out of the car Ruth almost stepped on a black snake and as she backed away it reared up and struck at her foot several times but couldn't quite reach far enough to inflict her with its fangs. After playing with it a bit we then shooed it into the bushes in case someone else came along and stepped on it - after all it was only about a baby about 15 cms long.

Huge Black Snake at Nambung National Park near the ocean

Then Giant Ruth shooed it away - carefully

Then we did something we have never done before - we took the jeep onto the beach and drove along a sand track until it actually went onto some soft sand and got stuck. I wasn't in 4WD and I hadn't let any air out of the tyres (they were still pumped for pulling the caravan, 45 psi in the rear and 40 psi in the front). However when I put it in 4WD low ratio I was able to slowly move out of the soft sand and onto the track again. This beach had seaweed piled high on it, but the water was as smooth as a mill pond - flat as a tack!