Break 1 - Day 2 - More Pinnacles and Stromatolites (say that quickly 3 times)

Saturday morning we headed to the stromatolites. These bacteria (cyanobacteria) are the earliest form of life on earth and contributed vast amounts of oxygen to the atmosphere allowing many other life forms to evolve. They require supersaline water to grow - so it's not everywhere that you will find them.

There are several areas in WA where these grow, but the ones here near the pinnacles are the most ancient form. They are the most similar to the most ancient fossilized ones.

They grow in several forms. The ones here are circular. Only the outside is active and the inner area dies off. Their growth rate varies, but the average is about 30 years per centimetre.

Note - the remaining photos for the day are of pinnacles - so don't be confused by the mismatch of text and photos please.

Next we headed to a couple of ‘points’ within the Nambung Park. We visited Kangaroo point and ….. We took a walk along the beach at Kangaroo – lots of seaweed washed in and there were the ‘buddy birds’ of pelicans and cormorants along the shore. There were also some other birds – wagtails, terns, and a couple of types of gulls – one quite large. We found some very large cuttlefish on the shoreline along with many, many kangaroo tracks leading around the sands in the area.

The next point was more protected and we lounged on the beach for a while. Kyle is becoming quite adept at constructing lounge chairs in the sand to lie back and read. From there we headed back to do some shopping and made a creative kangaroo curry for lunch. We packed a picnic for dinner and headed back to the pinnacles.

It was very overcast and even rained a bit on us – although just specks of rain. We took a different route this time and ventured into a less travelled area where there were lots of sand dunes.

Kyle had fun climbing and rolling down. At the base of the dune were some very large pinnacles which looked like Stonehenge. The first photo at left is of Kyle atop a sand dune - the pinnacles at the base are about 8 to 10 feet high to give you a sense of scale. And this is him in action rolling down the dune. Yes, he had a good shower that night.

The colours were totally different again today. We managed to eat our dinner at the lookout point in isolation – a few people wandered through, but mostly it was just the 3 of us. Very picturesque and peaceful.

We drove back in the dark – Mike took some shots in the dark as all the other vehicles were departing. There were spooky effects of shadows on the pinnacles which were hard to photo, but they looked really neat.

Again to bed early for a major drive day tomorrow.