Day 4 - Nambung National Park & Lancelin

15th March 2012

It's our last day in Perth today. Mummy packed breakfast and we ate in the car again (to save time). We took a 3-hour slow drive to the Nambung National Park to see the Pinnacles and on the way back, dropped by to see the sand dunes of Lancelin.

On the way out of the city, we made a little detour to the Swan Bell Towers (because we did not get down from the tram to take any photos here yesterday).

The Swan Bell Tower. We were here at 7am and managed to catch the sound of the bells chiming 7 times.

Good morning, swans! The Swan Bell Tower overlooks the Swan River so it is not surprising to spot a few swans here :)

Road trip to the Nambung National Park begins! 

Nambung National Park is home to the Pinnacles Desert, a series of eerie limestone formations sporadically scattered over vast yellow, rippled sand dunes. Source:http://www.discoverwest.com.au

At the Pinnacles Desert... my first reaction was "Wow, so much sand! Too bad I didn't bring my beach toys!" hahaha!

The smooth, fine sand in the desert

At the Desert Viewing Platform

We also took the Desert Drive (following the designated path for cars). It was a fun experience for us and the view was simply magnificent!

Car in the desert

Man and girl in the desert

Girl in the desert

Girl pretending to surf in the desert

Looking at some photographs in the gallery of the visitor's info centre

Some facts on how the pinnacles were formed

We had lunch in Lancelin, a small and quiet fishing town nestled between the ocean and sand dunes. We had fish and chips and daddy also ordered a fisherman's basket that came with fish, scallop, squid and shrimps...

Our unhealthy but quite yummy lunch... mummy painstakingly squeezed (every single piece) to absorb and get rid of all the excess oil using over 20 pieces of serviettes! :p

Next stop was to see the sand dunes. The popular activities here include sand-boarding, sand-motorbiking, buggy rides and 4-wheel drive rides. We did not do any of these activities because daddy felt that they were too dangerous and "extreme" for me. Furthermore, the weather was really HOT, with temperatures hovering above 40C. 

The snow-white sand dunes as seen from the highway

So what did we do there? We just walked around and... and I ate sand! Yes, a strong gust of wind sent some sand into my mouth while I was squatting down, scooping and playing with the sand and talking at the same time. Bad-bad mummy had a good laugh at me when I gagged, coughed and spat them out. When asked how I liked the taste of sand, I said "it's very crunchy but tasteless" hahaha!

The soft, smooth, fine and powdery white sand dunes 

It was still quite early when we returned to the city so after parking our car at the motel, we walked to a nearby bus stop to catch the FREE Cat Bus. We took the Red Cat and went sight-seeing in the city for the very last time...

The Red Cat bus stop

Hugging this big "green thing" just opposite the railway station

We had a simple dinner in Tony Roma's... daddy had the baby back ribs, I had the kiddy pizza and mummy had the shrimp scampi pasta

After dinner, we went for a short drive nearby to refuel before returning our rented car. On the way, we made a quick stop in Kings Park to take in the panoramic night view of the city...

Night view of Perth city from Kings Park. The park was surprisingly very crowded at night!

I had the shortest sleep that night, waking up at 3am to get to the airport to catch our 6:30am flight home. I was awake the whole time and only continued with my sleep in the plane much later. Although we missed Perth very much, we were also very happy to be back in our home sweet home!

-The End-