We had intended to write a blog from Geraldton, the second biggest city in Western Australia. Had we done so, however, it would have read something like:

"Went to Geraldton; it was closed."

To be fair, it was a Sunday but we hadn't expected both major supermarkets to be shut all day. Neither were we prepared for the funereal atmosphere as we drove through the centre. Perhaps Geraldton is a fantastic, lively place to visit and many people have the experience of a lifetime there. Just not on Sundays.

On the other hand, the Bel Air campsite was remarkably good value at $23 for the night ($20.70 with our Top Tourist discount). As well as an indoors kitchen, it even had a proper TV and games room and I have to confess to watching a good part of The Sound Of Music and marvelling at the clarity of Julie Andrews's singing.

The drive south from Geraldton was fairly dull, a fact not helped by the odd shower. As you might know, we just don't "do" rain of any kind. By the time we reached our destination of Cevantes, however, the skies were clearing so we were optimistic about our visit the next day to the area's main attraction, the Pinnacles.

As the afternoon looked fairly bright, I thought I would try to squeeze in a round of golf as the local course advertised cheap green fees and club hire. Katy wanted to mess around with the camera and the laptop, so I set off alone to the course which backed onto the local bowls club.

After trying for ages to find someone to ask where I went, I came across a couple of guys in what seemed to be the clubhouse. "Golf? You don't want to play golf," one of them said. Not unreasonably, I asked why and was told that the grass hadn't been cut for six weeks and wouldn't be done again until the end of November. Even the most perfect shot down the middle of the fairway would apparently result in a lost ball. Oh well.

The next afternoon we headed into the Nambung national park. Small diversions to Kangaroo Point and the wonderfully-named Hangover Bay proved disappointing, but the visitor centre proved quite informative apart from the key detail of being unable to tell us how the Pinnacles were actually formed (If you're really interested, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinnacles_Desert.)

The Pinnacles are pillars of limestone standing proud in an area of desert terrain. There are two ways to see them - on foot and by car - and we did both. We first walked across the hard sand, surprised that we were allowed to get so close to the rocks. The only thing you are not allowed to do is climb them or sit on them.

Individual pillars vary in size, from short stumps less than a metre high to the tallest which stood about five metres. They also vary in shape, with some complex formations vaguely resembling castles, while others looked simply phallic.

Although very old, the Pinnacles have only been exposed to the air in the last few hundred years as the sand surrounding them has been blown away. As we felt the wind and sand whipping into our arms and legs, we could well understand the impact of erosion.

One thing that took me by surprise was how many pillars there were and how large an area they covered. From reading the guide books, I thought there might be 50-100 Pinnacles all concentrated into a small area which would only take half an hour to look round. In fact, there are thousands of pillars spread over a wide expanse of desert-like terrain. The overall effect is of an extra-terrestrial landscape and we spent more than an hour exploring on foot and not far short of that while slowly taking the 4km drive route.

Given the unusual nature of the area and its visual appeal, I would have expected it to have featured in a couple of films, but it has only appeared in a couple of obscure music videos. Perhaps Ridley Scott could use it for some alien planet in his forthcoming prequel to the Alien films?

In the camp that evening, we had a couple of "it's a small world" experiences. We met an English couple called Dan and Francesca and discovered that Dan had once worked with Katy's old boss. We also discovered that they had bought their tent and assorted equipment at a hostel in Perth - from a couple of Germans whom we had met both in Denham and Kalbarri.

The tent was the same model as our small one (which is on the point of giving up the ghost) and I think it is fair to say that Dan wasn't in the best of moods with it after wrestling with the wind to get it put up. At one point he was going to give it to us for free the next morning as he was already fed up both with it and the long drives involved in seeing anything to the north of Perth. He was all in favour of heading back to the more populated south of the state and staying in hostels. By the morning, however, he had calmed down and changed his mind.

That means we still need to get a new small tent, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem because next stop is the bright lights of Perth. Civilisation beckons!

Richard