We left Perth early and drove up North to Cervantes to see the pinnacles.  There is a small museum next to them which is nice to visit to get out of the desert heat.  There are two ways to see the pinnacles. One way is to drive.  There is a “road” made in the desert outlined with rocks, and Hendrik drove since this was the closest he could get to driving off road.

Driving through the pinnacles

The other way is walking.  We did both.  They were beautiful and I’ve never seen anything like it.  The desert in Western Australia was completely different than in the center.  Here it looked like the stereotypical desert, with soft yellow sand; the center had bright red sand.

Walking among the pinnacles

Next we drove up to Port Denison/ Dongara which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be and it was completely dead.  We went swimming in the Indian Ocean which was warm even in the evening, and the beach was abandoned.  There was pretty much only one open option for dinner which was a restaurant/bar near our hotel with an ocean view.  It was nice but really expensive for what it was.  What we soon noticed was that the more remote we were the more expensive everything was.

The moon Hendrik photographed

That night we went to see the stars since there were hardly any city lights and the sky was clear.  Hendrik was amazed by stars since he had never seen any growing up in Belgium, which is all lit up at night.