Day Trip to Pinnacle

The normal route for Pinnacle Day Tour including Caversham Wildlife Park, The Lobster Shack, Nambung National Park and Lancelin. However, understanding our almost sloth-like travel style, I decided to schedule Caversham Wildlife Park on another day. So, our day trip looks like this instead: Hillarys Boat Harbour -->The Lobster Shack --> Nambung National Park --> Lancelin --> Perth

Since I decided to have lunch at The Lobster Shack, Cervantes, we needed a brief stop instead of driving straight to Cervantes. Hillarys Boat Harbour is a lovely choice. You can spend a whole day there, or you can simply just drop by and say hello to the deep blue Indian Ocean. We had fun exploring the neighborhood, and we love the sea breeze as a great start.

After Hillarys Boat Harbour, it was a long and slow drive (the speed limit was as low as 60km/hr sometimes) before hitting the highway. When I planned the Pinnacle trip, the fact that one has to travel north along the Indian Ocean Drive made me pretty excited. I was hoping for some excitement, at least half as mesmerizing as Pacific Coast Highway, or at least half as fun as the Great Ocean Road. Unfortunately, this stretch of Indian Ocean Drive (from Perth to Cervantes) is pretty boring. At least, you don't get to see Indian Ocean most of the time, until you are almost near Cervantes.

Some dreamy plants along the way

Glimpse of Indian Ocean when we almost reach Cervantes

We went straight to The Lobster Shack for lunch. I know this is touristy but where else to go for lunch near Nambung National Park? I'd rather impress my parents with lobsters :p

(Make sure you go early before the tour buses arrive. Normally Pinnacle tour include a few hours stop at Caversham Wildlife Park so plan your time properly. We were lucky that we reached just a few minutes before groups after groups of tourist come here for lobsters)

Very cute toilet door design

Their staffs are efficient

Satisfying lunch

After lunch, we immediately headed to Nambung National Park. It was a cloudy afternoon. I was quite disappointed because I dreamt of taking tons of photos here, with dramatic blue sky and desert.

Cloudy and moody

The road leading to no where?

The lone ranger

The "Golden Sand"

To our surprise, we were attacked by swarm of flies. We have heard of how scary it is during summer in Australia but I never expected to meet the swarm during May. It was so bad that my aunt and my parents refused to get out from the car at the end of the trip, and I have to basically wrap myself to minimize exposure of my skin (since bush flies love protein from our sweat, tears, saliva, mucus and blood). No wonder they are selling fly net hat everywhere.


To show you how scary are these flies, here's the photo of my dad walking in front of me:

See the flies on his back?

Anyway, the flies won't stop En and myself exploring. We love the fact that you can just drive into the desert and find spots without other tourist and have tons of fun.

The sky turned slightly blue (and with some help of photo editing) by the time we say goodbye

We ended our trip with sand surfing at Lancelin. We rented a surfing board at one of the convenient stall at the price of AUD10 for 2 hours (with AUD50 deposit), had some fun trying (while my aunt hid in the car due to the flies and my parents following us took some "pretend to surf" photos.

And this is how we ended our day trip to Pinnacle.


Read also: Greater Perth 6D6N Itinerary