Last night was a bitterly cold and even at 8am the temperature is still only 8 degrees. It is proving hard to keep warm at night even sleeping fully clothed and with the additional blankets. We re-light the fire this morning and have breakfast huddled round the flames for warmth. Cows and sheep can be heard grazing somewhere nearby and galahs are calling in the trees as the sun filters through the leaves. Despite the cold start we are in for another gloriously sunny day and even at this time of year (winter) the temperatures are in the 20s when the sun is out.
Cervantes – which is not full of people tilting at windmills – is a small sleepy town where little opens on a Sunday apart from the general store. The main attraction in this area is the Pinacles Desert in Nambung National Park a few kilometres outside town. Lonely Planet describe it as ‘other worldly’ and the large limestone obelisks rising out of a golden desert create a surreal landscape that could well be a set from Star Wars or Star Trek. Thousands of naturally occurring limestone pillars some as tall at 5m weathered by the elements into some intricate shapes, are scattered across an area of 400 hectares. There is a short walking trail as well as a 4 km loop road which winds through the formations, for those, like us, too lazy to walk round.
From here we travel further south to Yanchep about 70km of Perth. We are now within striking distance of our goal and the end of what has been an amazing 10,000 kilometre road trip. We can hardly believe that we have been on the road for two months! As we approach Perth there is less bush and more rolling farmland. Trees are much more in evidence, traffic is on the increase and sheep and cattle graze alongside the highway. We camp a Willanga Grove Rest Area. This rather noisy site on the roadside is not our first choice, that seems to have been decommissioned. So we have to make do. This, unsurprisingly, is not a popular site judging by the absence of any other vans and the abundance of firewood.