We got up early today to make our way to The Pinnacles, a spectacular and eerie series of rock formations near the coastal town of Cervantes.
The eerie rock formations that make up The Pinnacles
The eerie rock formations that make up The Pinnacles
It was a stinking hot day, so thankfully we were able to drive around the track and see a lot of the site from the car. We left the car every so often to take pictures, but returned to the shade of the car post haste. On one sweaty excursion we saw a couple of emus casually strolling amongst the rocks.
An emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) in The Pinnacles
Emu tracks
We then headed up the road to Lesueur National Park. Along the way we saw a shingleback (Tiliqua rugosa) and I had my first encounter with a western blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua occidentalis).
Shingleback (Tilqua rugosa)
Road-killed western blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua occidentalis)
When we got to Lesueur it was too hot to have a good chance of seeing much in the way of critters, but we did get to see a whole bunch of plants. Lesueur NP has one of the highest number of plant species of any area in the world. It all just looked like green to me, but Mike pointed out a number of interesting species, including the Lesueur banksia (Banksia tricuspis) which is found nowhere else but this one park.
The tall plant on the left is a Lesueur banksia (Banksia tricuspis). The mountain in the background is Mt Lesueur. Picture taken in Lesueur National Park. That Lesueur guy gets around, doesn’t he!
