From the desert to the sea.....

I went on another day tour around Perth, just because it is so much easier than travelling around by bus. On our way to the Pinnacles, we stopped at Yanchep National Park where we walked along a boardwalk and spotted sleeping koalas. Koalas only eat eucalyptus leaves and sometimes the leaves ferment in the koalas stomach and they become drunk. This has led to the legend of the 'drop bear.' Locals scare tourists by telling them not to walk out in the bush at night for fear of the 'drop bear' falling on their heads. In actuality, this is true because the koalas sometimes get so drunk they regularly fall out of the trees while they sleep.

We reached the Pinnacles, located in Nambung National Park. The Pinnacles are about 4,000 limestone pillars that are approximately 80,000 years old. They are formed by the wind blowing sand away from the tree roots that resulted in the appearance of solid limestone rock.

They were formed by seashells that were brooken down into lime rich sands that were carried inland. Lime leaching from the sand occurred and rain cemented the lower levels of the dune into a soft limestone. Over time, vegetation started to grow in the area that created an acidic layer of soil and humus, thus producing a hard cap of calcrete that formed above the softer limestone. Cracks were created in the calcrete from the roots of the plants and the soft limestone was dissolved by the acidic soil. The channels formed by this process allowed sand to infiltrate in. Eventually, the vegetation died and wind blew away the sand covering the eroded limestone, thus producing the Pinnacles.

To end our day we drove off to the sand dunes in Lancelin for some sand boarding. Sand boarding is just like tobaggoning, but on sand instead of snow. It was so much fun. First we went 4x4'ing along the dunes to find a good steep one. However, we managed to get stuck and almost tip the truck. So all of us on the truck had to evacuate and push the vehicle out of its rut. It was so much fun!

On another day trip, we travelled south to Margaret River to wine taste at Xanadu Winery. I tried 7 different wines and hated all of them! I'm not a wine drinker, but this is not why I came on this trip. There were a lot of other things to do besides drink the wine from this famous orchard region.

We visited the Eagles Heritage Raptor and Wildlife Center and got to see a pair of the biggest eagles in Australia as well as a pair of peregrin falcons. We also got to see a free flight show of the black kite hawks. But most excitingly, I got to hold a black kite hawk on my arm. They have a pretty good grip on your arm and it gave me a new respect for birds of prey.

We travelled further south to the Leeuwin Lighthouse, where you could see the Southern Ocean to the left and the Indian Ocean to the right. It was very windy and cold down there but such a beautiful sight so see both oceans.