Friday morning my car had to get some more treatments. While we had to wait, Miriam and I had breakfast at a café (Muesli and bacon egg toast). So, finally I had my first yoghurt since I’ve left home. Almost started feeling like I am on withdrawal.
At 11.30 the car was finally ready to leave. Unbelievable how much running around it took to get there and without Jess, who helped me with everything – all the time, I would either be stranded in the outback by now or just not ready to leave yet. Thank you, Jess! So glad I met you! With all the fixing, I now paid about 1840$ for my Toyota, which I’d like to name Hero. It’s such a cool car and I hope he will live up to its name 🙂
Entering the Pinnacle Desert
So at 11.30am we took the freeway up north, then went food shopping in Joondalup (to complete the camping gear, we also had to buy a hammer and pegs – I feel so manly…). Then at around 1, we finally entered Indian Ocean Dr. This time, we drove past the exit to Lancelin and for a long while we saw a mixture of red brown dirt with green bushes, trees, and sometimes yellow fields. The ocean only showed himself from time to time (although we were on an ocean drive…) but when it did, the view was stunning! Even more spectacular were the extremely white sand dunes that would be piled up in the above mentioned nature once in a while.
Hero and I
We finally reached the national park with the Pinnacles inside. Unfortunately, we didn’t yet have a form to buy a WA national park pass, so we paid the 12$ entry fee but the lady gave us the form and told us that we could hand it in at the next np and then we’d get the money back. We started the Pinnacle Drive, which was a yellow sand road that lead through hundreds of yellow rocks that were scattered all over the place. It reminded me a bit of a cemetery except that the feeling was completely different in that warm light and these surroundings.
We got out of the car from time to time and took pictures at the many places I could pull the car over. We saw only one other van while we were on the drive and being so alone there was quite cool. When the drive was over, we decided to drive on directly, since it was already 4.30pm.
So far, I didn’t feel tired of driving at all. Hero is really comfortable to sit in and so easy to drive. I think in this day alone I drove more than I’ve driven in Switzerland so far. And driving on the wrong side proves easier than I thought. The only times I ended up on the wrong side were when I had to wait to turn into a street out of a driveway. Twice I was in the way of someone who wanted to drive into the driveway 🙂
At 5.30, we thought we shouldn’t drive any further, since we wanted to put our tent up during daylight. Therefore, we went to the campsite at Jurian Bay and asked whether they still had a space. Unfortunately, they were fully booked. Probably because it’s a three day weekend. The lady then sent us 1km up north, where they had a second campground at a football field. Once we found the field, we saw that already a few tents and campervans were spread around the field. We set the tent up, paid 25$ for our space (I’d have preferred free camping but we didn’t see a rest area close to here) and then we went back to the pretty and family friendly beach. There even was a float!! Unfortunately, halfway towards it, my skin started itching because I probably swam into parts of a jellyfish again. Therefore and also because we wanted to cook while the sun was still out, we went back to the football field, had a shower and then prepared our first dinner with our camping equipment. Luckily, our Croatian neighbours were extremely nice and lent us their big lamp once it got dark, because of course we didn’t manage to finish cooking before sunset. We will try to arrive at our campsite earlier from now on.
At least, there is no wind here and we can enjoy a quiet night below the stars.
Happiness is only real when shared 