Huarts Reserve (Cervantes) 15 November 2006

Lazed around Jurien Bay all day, a pleasant fishing village right on a perfect green bay. Walked up and down the beach, called in for our mail at the little shopping centre and nearly fell over when we saw a tiny block of land for sale, where we were parked, for $850,000. WA has caught up with east coast prices! Stopped the night at a delightful camping reserve with a surprising variety of wildflowers still in evidence.
Drove into Cervantes which may have been an even more beautiful bay with a very small shopping centre. Detached the car to visit the very famous Pinnacles. They were different to our expectations as most of the Australian icons have been. Photos we have seen do not show the expanse and dimensions of the scene. We were surprised that you just drive through them on a well marked 3½km sandy track as though it was a safari park. It was an easy one this time! They are larger than we expected in some places but it is an every changing landscape as the sand dunes shift 6 metres every ten years. The landscape along the coast was also intriguing due to very white sand patches in the dunes, interspersed with the encroachment of shrubs and trees by the shifting sand. It really looked like a snow drift. Moved east after lunch through the country side and saw lots of different native flowers from the changing landscape. However due to the drought, they were not in the great expanses we had anticipated though we did see was great diversity. We also passed a big wind farm, lots of wheat fields with visibly poor yields and a few attractive historic towns still alive and well (So near Perth we guess).
We arrived at the monastic village of New Norcia in the late afternoon and had a walk around the river. It looks a fascinating town.