Perth Trip 2022, Day 4: Heading south

Today we completed the circuit that saw us, over three days, driving from Perth east to York, then north to New Norcia and Cervantes, and back south to Perth and on into Fremantle. It’s been a great little itinerary of around 700kms all up. There were more wildflowers today, as you will see, but today was also our day for some unusual landscapes. It was all fascinating, but busy again, so we are feeling quite weary this evening – but I hope to get this blog post done.

The day started with a simple breakfast at Cervantes’ caravan park’s Seashells Cafe. It was nothing fancy but the service was very friendly and helpful, and they did do the sort of GF toast I like. The coffee, though, was average – it’s been some time since I’ve seen a crema! Surely in Fremantle …

Lake Thetis and the stromatolites

Our first planned stop was Lake Thetis, which is located in Cervantes. The lake is one of only a few places in the world that has marine stromatolites and thrombolites, which are the oldest living life-forms (living fossils) on the planet. They have been producing oxygen for about 3.5 billion years. According to the website (linked on the name), the layers or mats that make the stromatolites slowly build on top of each other over many years, with each stromatolite growing at a rate of 5cm in 100 years! They need light so are limited to shallow water where the sunlight can penetrate. Stromatolites have a layered structure, while thrombolites have a “clotted” one. Both are formed formed in shallow water from microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria.

Most of the pictures we’ve seen show them appearing above the surface of the lake, but we guess that with all the rain we’ve had recently, they are all currently submerged. The result is that it took us a little while to fully understand what we were seeing – and we probably never did fully – but it was a fascinating experience, nonetheless. We also enjoyed walking around the lake because – well – wildflowers. It was a glorious morning, and we spent quite a bit of time relishing the gorgeous day, photographing wildflowers, and looking for stromatolites in the water.

Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park

The Pinnacles were a major sightseeing goal for this trip, once I realised they were within striking distance of Perth, and they did not disappoint. We have seen some amazing landforms before – particularly in US National Parks like Bryce Canyon – but the Pinnacles are certainly up there. There are different theories about how they were formed, but I’ll leave that to the scientists. For us, it was one of those memorable experiences to wander around such old and strange “beings”. Not really beings, we know, but they had that sort of eerie impact.

We experienced the pinnacles in both ways offered – we first did the drive (about 4kms) and then we did the walk through them (supposedly 1.2km, but our walking app gave it at over 2kms. Not long, either way, but we took our time because as well as the formations, there were – yes – wildflowers.)

Yesterday, we commented on how quiet it seems to be, despite its being wildflower tourist season. Well today, as we were leaving the Park, we discovered where all the tourists were – in the line to get into the Park! Seriously, suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a line of some 15 or so cars waiting at the entrance kiosk to pay to enter the Pinnacles Desert. This was around noon. We were very glad that we tend to be early birds!

Wanagarren Nature Reserve

After the Pinnacles, our thoughts turned to lunch, but en route we noticed some beautiful white sand-dunes, so, not starving yet, we decided to investigate – and found ourselves on the road to Wedge Island. Following our nose a little, we discovered a little road turn-off and found ourselves in the Wanagarren Nature Reserve (actually, most of the area was in the reserve, but this road took us into some dunes – where we saw not only some of the beautiful white dunes we’d spied but, yes, also some wildflowers!) This sort of spontaneous exploring can be so rewarding.

I should add here that there are some quite weird and wonderful wildflowers around – proving Western Australia’s fame for wildflower diversity – and you have to keep your eyes open to spot them. Some are tiny, and some can be highly inconspicuous, but there’s much fun to be had in the hunt.

Lunch at the world’s best beer garden (or so they say)

Finally, it was time for lunch and, surprisingly to us, there were not many places to stop along Indian Ocean Drive, so we decided to detour 7 kilometres off the highway and go to Lancelin where, we read, the Endeavour Tavern had the world’s best beer garden! A big call, and one it can’t really sustain, but its grassy lawn and stunning unimpeded view of the Indian Ocean were pretty good. In fact, sitting there in the warm sun did make us feel we were on holiday, even if the food was ok rather than supporting its “world’s best” claim. (Maybe its beer is the thing.) Apparently, they can’t do fresh seafood at a decent price so it was farmed salmon for me, with rice and bok choy, and sweet and sour pork – with rice and bok choy – for Len.

Day’s end

From Lancelin it was about an hour-and-a-half drive to Fremantle, but it was Friday afternoon and, while the roads continued to be good, and the traffic was not bad by Sydney or Melbourne standards, it felt like it took a long time. Probably, we were just tired. We arrived at our apartment before 5pm, went for a little reconnaissance, found a place for dinner (right next door as it turned out), and bought in some supplies. A little later, we went back out for said dinner.

Bread In Common is one of those industrial chic style places with share food. They also have share tables, by which I mean that the restaurant seating comprises rows of long tables at which people were sat in their groups, sometimes with a chair between groups, and sometimes not. The server said, when we turned up for our booking, that he just had to sort out the Tetris table arrangements! We could see what he meant. It was a little noisy – and also very dark. We felt a lot better when a woman around two-thirds our age had to use her phone torch to read the menu. So, it’s not only the “elderly” who can’t read menus in dark restaurants (or, in fact, properly see what we are eating). The food though – and my in-house brand gin and tonic – made up for it. Delicious.