Pinnacles Desert

Interesting facts

Dutch charts recorded this stretch of coast as early as 1658, marking two landmarks named the North and South Hummocks.

Many pillars show cross-bedding, layered lines that record sudden shifts in the prevailing wind while the original dunes were piling up.

Some pinnacles have mushroom-like tops, formed where a hard calcrete cap wears away more slowly than the softer limestone beneath it.

The park takes its name from an Aboriginal word thought to mean crooked or winding, first given in 1938 to the Nambung River.

The Nambung River flows into the park and then disappears underground into a cave system within the limestone.

The Yued people are recognised as the traditional custodians of the land on which the Pinnacles stand.

Nambung National Park, created in 1994 from reserves gazetted in 1956, 1967 and 1968, covers about 193 square kilometres.

Surveys have recorded around 176 animal species in the park, about 128 of them birds, along with more than 170 flowering plants.

Humpback whales pass the coast off the park on their seasonal migrations, while sea lions and dolphins are present all year.

Why it is worth it

The Pinnacles are thousands of limestone pillars standing in the yellow sand of Nambung National Park, on the coast north of Perth. Some are slender spires, some broad and blunt like tombstones, the tallest about three and a half metres high, and they stretch away across the dunes in a crowd that looks almost deliberate. With the blue of the Indian Ocean just beyond and the low scrub of the coastal heath around, it is one of the most otherworldly places in Australia.

The pillars are made of Tamala Limestone, a rock built ultimately from seashells: shell fragments broken up by the sea were blown inland as sand and cemented into limestone dunes. How exactly the pinnacles formed is still argued over. One idea is that rainwater dissolved the limestone unevenly, leaving harder columns standing as the softer rock and sand were removed; another is that they preserve the casts of trees buried in the dunes; a third points to plant roots concentrating calcium into hard crusts. Whatever the cause, the shifting sand keeps covering and uncovering them.

The light is everything here. At sunrise and sunset the pillars cast long shadows across the sand and the yellow turns to deep gold, and after dark, far from city lights, the sky above the field is thick with stars. Between August and October wildflowers and flowering wattle bloom across the surrounding heath. Western grey kangaroos and emus are often seen in the park.

The area was protected as a reserve in 1967 and became part of Nambung National Park in 1994. A 4.5 km scenic drive and a 1.5 km walking loop wind among the formations, and the Pinnacles Desert Discovery Centre, opened in 2008, explains the geology and the natural and cultural heritage of the area. Nearby are the beaches of Hangover Bay and Kangaroo Point, and at Lake Thetis, close to Cervantes, there are living stromatolites, rock-like structures built by microbes of a kind that goes back to the dawn of life.

Getting there

The Pinnacles lie close to the small town of Cervantes, about 200 km, roughly two hours' drive, north of Perth along the coastal Indian Ocean Drive; the nearest point of the Perth metropolitan area is about 148 km away in a straight line. Perth Airport (PER) is the gateway. There is no accommodation inside the park; most visitors stay in Cervantes or come on a day trip from Perth.

Pinnacles Desert

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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