Part 2 (The Pinnacles and Geraldton)

After witnessing the sunrise over Lancelin, we headed north yet again. Our ultimate destination was Geraldton, the only town along our route that really deserved the name (at least, the only place big enough to had stoplights). First, though, we had to check out Nambung National Park, which is renowned for the Pinnacles, rock formations that rise above the sand and cover the landscape.


Gives a sense of how widespread they are.


Some of them were pretty big, too.

After a good hour or so checking out the Pinnacles, we got back on the road to Geraldton. There were a couple brief stops for points of interest - a lookout, the cute little fishing village of Dongara, and of course the leaning trees. These trees naturally grow just like you see here. The winds whip over the hills and stunt all the growth on one side, so they are forced to adopt this hunched, tortured appearance.



Eventually we reached Geraldton, which is a very nice seaside community of something like 30,000. We had a look at the local museum, then we met up with a fellow group of exchanges (Matt, Sindre, Alyssa, Cindy, and Leslie, who were roadtripping like us except trying to make it to Broome - look it up, it's a long ways from Perth, they still aren't back yet). All of us had afternoon tea, then we met our friend Stevie, who is from Geraldton. She (and her parents) were kind enough to host us for a barbecue at their family's farm outside of town. At the farm, they had a large pile of brush they'd been accumulating over the winter, and they chose the night we were there to light it, which made for a really good show, some awesome pictures, and a lot of heat. The other guys had to take off after dinner (they had accomodation booked further up the coast), but we stayed the night, which was very nice of them (we brought beer) and a lot warmer than the sand dunes.