Gero back beach

Taking Sandy to her Cove

On the map we noticed a place called 'Sandy Cove'. So naturally we detoured 20km to see it (I was travelling with Sandy, you see). It was called a 'recreation reserve' and that sounded interesting. It was a camping site with a beach. The road let you right onto the beach (I am against 4WDing on beaches, so we quickly reversed and departed the area).

To get there we passed a limestone quarry with big warning signs about asbestos in the area. We drove a bit faster.

There were many more 'Sandy' places on the map, but one was enough for me. Had there been some place with my name, perhaps.

Rocks

This is a Pinnacle. I think it looks like a warthog.

The Pinnacles Desert is made up of hundreds of these limestone rocks varying in size (see below). It is 245km north of Perth in the Nambung NP near Cervantes.

You can walk around and through them on a somewhat marked trail, or drive in a circular loop. Given we had been sitting in the car for 3+ hours, we opted for the walk and were joined by 100s of flies. Some friends of mine admitted to doing the drive and hitting a pinnacle (a little one) in their hire car!

My German housemates came here for the day when I was sleeping between nightshifts (the only considerate thing they did for me) and complained it was just a lot of rocks. Unfortunately I had to agree with them. I was disappointed with the size of them and that you couldn't get a good view of the whole area. Later in our stinking-hot-fly-infested walk, we found some bigger ones, and took silly pictures to keep us amused.

I was hoping to 'see' more things in the rocks, like the warthog above (which I only discovered when browsing my photos), but aside from some phalic like shapes, there was nothing. Nothing but a long, hot detour.

Proof that I am taller than Sandy.

strangeness

Our first night in Geraldton we stayed at the Ocean View Villas. We ended up there because I phoned the Motor Inn which was in this year's RAC accom guide, but the number was diverted to this place. Unfortunately I forgot my binoculars, so I couldn't get a view of the ocean. Great view of the highway though.

The first thing I noticed were these tiles in the bathroom and kitchen:

I think they were hand painted because they were all different. Someone must like horses.

Windy balloon release

The black and silver cylinder is a remote balloon launcher (RBL). The balloon is inflated inside here. Attached to the balloon is a target (silver) and an instrument (Radiosonde, pictured below) which measures pressure, temperature and humidity as it goes up into the atmosphere. It has a spool of string so it hangs beneath the balloon which unwinds after lift-off. There is a 10m long cord which goes from the RBL and attaches to the instrument with velcro. Once the balloon has moved more than 10m away, the cord detaches. This is to try to prevent the radiosonde hitting the side of the RBL and getting damaged.

Dynamite Bay, Green Head, WA

Last month a friend from Melbourne called Sandy came over to WA to partake in a roadtrip with me. We travelled from Perth to Monkey Mia which is maybe 800km north of Perth. All up we covered 2100km in 7 days.

This was one of our first stops: Dynamite Bay. It was described as being one of the nicest on this stretch of coastline. Judge for yourself: