Australia 2025

Day 13- The Pinnacles Tour

Up at 7 am to meet our guide - a young fella called Max.

This bloke turned out to be one of the most unpleasant an obnoxious people to have ever walked planet Earth. Mysogynistic, sexist, xenophophic, bigoted, and self-opinionated to use five words. He made a long day even longer. He even thought he knew more about a range of topics including apostrophies! A topic me and Jon had had the day before. Obviously an internet surfer although he claimed he held a degree. Probably BSc Pomposity.

Our first stop was the Yanchuck nature reserve where we saw some Kangaroos and a couple of sleepy Koala's.

After an hours drive, the next stop was the amazing Pinnacles desert - by any stretch of the imagination, a place unique on this planet. It was ayellow samnd place and was it hot! A good 34 degrees and the flies were terrible. Australian flies are most persistent and I wish I had bought a net as the Japanese tourists had done. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinnacles_(Western_Australia)). It forms the Namburng National Park.

There are three theories as why these pillars were formed:

1) A period of extensive solutional weathering (karstification).

2) The preservation of tree casts buried in coastal aeolianites, where roots became groundwater conduits, resulting in the precipitation of indurated (hard) calcrete. Subsequent wind erosion of the aeolianite then exposed the calcrete pillar.

3) Some combination of plant roots and water that eventually forms a calcite and is enhanced when the plant root die.

We could only bear 20 minutes in the heat an flies so we decamped to the Lobster Shack for a lunch of Fish & Chips which wasn't bad at all.

On the way to the next venue, the wine tasting in the Swan Valley, we stopped off at Hangover Bay and Wanagarren Nature Reserve to observe a fantastic beach, an unsual white sand dune and some unusual trees.

The wine tasting of 8 different types helped assuage the toxicity of our dear Max and we returned back at the hotel a little late as the muppet got lost on the way back. Wine tasting is not high on my list of things to do as I'm more of a beer man these days, but hey-ho.

Overall, The Pinnacles was a highlight of this trip outside of The Ashes and was one of the most incredible places I've ever been to.

Digesting that, we watched Man United -v- Crystal Palace in the evening - Man Utd are always being good for a laugh these days - at The Globe which is a much different place now the Barmy Army have decamped to Brisbane.

A long sleep followed as I was both tired physically and mentally. I feel the pen of complaint coming our at some point....