Monday 31st May - Moora to the Pinnacles

We didn’t have much luck with our off-road tracks today.

A quick check of the wheel bearings revealed that they weren’t the cause of the vibration we feel through the steering when travelling at speed, leaving the tyres as the most likely culprits.  We may have lost some balancing weights (as the front nearside wheel has none), or uneven tyre wear may be the cause. We’ll have to see a tyre specialist in Geraldton in a few days time.

On our maps we’d spied two possible 4WD tracks leading off from the Indian Ocean Drive which lead into the southern end of the Namburg National Park.  As well as being more fun than tarmac, the tracks would act as a shortcut, thus avoiding the need to head north up to Cervantes.

Unfortunately one ended in a locked gate and the other had a no through road sign, so in the end we had to go the long way round and didn’t arrive at the Pinnacles until about 3pm.  We later found out that the closed tracks were ranger control roads, and have since invested in a Routes and Tracks road atlas for Western Australia to hopefully avoid being caught out in future.

At the Pinnacles broken cloud let the sun through to illuminate the weird columns which seem to cluster in groups across the undulating sand, with some clumps of vegetation in between. SPOT

Viewing the Pinnacles is a slightly sanitised experience as a vehicle track runs through the thousands of limestone pillars, but it’s still an impressive sight (and reminded us a bit of Cappadocia in Turkey).

It was good to visit at sunset with the ever changing light adding an extra dimension to the pillars, and we savoured our time and enjoyed the peacefulness of the area - which I doubt you would get in high season.

A couple of hundred photographs later and we were done for the day.

We’ll return tomorrow morning, but not for sunrise (much too early!).

It was getting dark, and in search of a bush campsite for the night we headed south out of the national park along the Grey Road, a 4WD track that leads down the coast all the way to Lancelin.  Again, luck wasn’t with us and after about 10km we hadn’t spotted a suitable site to pull over and camp, so we turned around to head back to civilisation.  On the way back in the dark we spied a road off towards the coast, and following it we came upon a rather idyllic camping spot in a small bay.