Nambung National Park is a three hour drive along the coast 245 km north of Perth. Within the park is the Pinnacles Desert, an area of yellow sands and limestone outcroppings. Thousands of stone pillars stud the area, some up to 12 feet high. Starting as an area of sand dunes blown inland from the beach, rain water leached lime from the sand near the surface and concentrated in lower levels of the dune, cementing the sand together into limestone. The pillars were a result of a hard crust of calcrete that formed over the top of the limestone. Water seeped through cracks in the crust and further dissolved the limestone leaving columns of harder limestone under calcrete caps. Winds blowing the sand away exposed the columns we see today.
I arrived at the Pinnacles at mid-day, making photography difficult, although the day was clear, with little breeze.
