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The weather has been awful here with torrential rain and crazy winds – apparently Perth is known as Australia’s “Windy City”… who knew! I suppose you don’t get great waves for surfing if you’re not this windy.

Anyway, this past weekend the weather had relaxed a little and so we decided to do a road trip further north to check out two places: the white sand dunes and the Pinnacles.

The White Sand Dunes
Located in the town of Lancelin, the white sand dunes are just that, white sand dunes. As far as the eye can see of pristine white sand with a snow-like appearance. Tourists and locals have wasted no time in making the most of these natural beauties and you can often find motorbikes, 4×4 cars and sandboarders charging the alabaster mounds with fervor.

The children had a great time running up and down the dunes. We tried renting boards to attempt some sand boarding but were advised against it since there was torrential rain the night before that had left the sand quite wet. It hadn’t completely dried when we arrived that morning. It didn’t matter really because we still had a lot of fun looking around and walking along the lowly hills. It was a lovely morning out that culminated in having lunch nearby at the Lancelin Beach Hotel with Western Australia’s turquoise coast as our view.

Walking around the white sand dunes

Views of WA’s turquoise coast from the Lookout at Lancelin Beach Hotel

Next stop, the Pinnacles…

The Pinnacles
The Pinnacles are random limestone formations that look as if they sprouted in the middle of the desert landscape. They are a popular natural attraction. We were told that most families who move to Perth tend to see the Pinnacles within the first week of their arrival! I guess seeing them 3 months after we arrived here means we’re late bloomers 😉

We told the children that we were going to see dinosaur rocks to peak their interest, which worked. The rocks are located in Nambung National Park, almost 2 hours north of Lancelin.

It was a very windy day when we went, and on top of that the tours were canceled when we arrived at Nambung National Park for reasons which I now can’t remember. However, you don’t really need a tour anyway. If you enjoy walking for miles and miles seeing random limestone rocks, then you’ll enjoy this trip. And don’t forget to bring your camera…

Apparently, a must-do is to eat at, and do a tour of, the Lobster Shack in the nearby town of Cervantes. Unfortunately, by the time we got there they had just closed. As such we decided to drive to another seafood-inspired eatery in the same town. I was fascinated by the name of Cervantes, seeing as it is the name of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes who wrote the famous story of Don Quixote de la Mancha. Driving around I was intrigued by the street names: “Madrid”, “Seville”, “Iberia”, “Cadiz”! Surely this town had Spanish immigrants who first landed in Australia! Actually, no. OK… maybe the person who founded this town was Spanish. Nope, not that either. Why would a random town, 4 hours north of Perth City be called Cervantes then? Apparently, it was named after a ship that arrived there, headed by a British captain. Reading further into its history you soon discover that the ship was named Cervantes after the author. Phew! Felt like a 6-degrees of separation game for a second!

Spanish street names in Cervantes, WA

For more stories on sight-seeing, travel or life in Perth in general, please visit Cross Cultural TCK’s Blog