Once again we’ve picked up a home on wheels and joined the campervan set in exploring Australia,- this time we’ll be checking out the sights and sounds of Western Australia (which in Aussie is “WA”). The wild west of Australia isn’t as well travelled as many other parts of the country due in no small measure to the distances involved and the expense incurred (if Australia is now one of the more expensive countries in the world than the worldwide epicentre of stupidly high prices is likely somewhere in WA). The campervan we picked up has seen better days and I’m not feeling the love we had with some of the other roadsters so for now she will be unnamed. We puttered north of Perth along the coastal highway and almost immediately started tracking amazing sights on the horizon. With the Indian Ocean crashing against the shores on our left, we were passing some of the whitest sand dunes we had ever seen- many were contained by a national park but apparently they hold little interest for the average Australian as there was no signage or even photo opportunity bays alongside the highway. I found them fascinating (missing the mounds of snow from home??) and, according to DH, risked all sorts of deadly spiders and snakes to tramp through the bush surrounding the dunes to get a closer look.

One geographic WOW that is a highlight for Aussies and everyone else are the limestone Pinnacles in Nambung National Park – the endless acres of these stone guardians struck me as natures version of China's Terra Cotta Warriors. Theories abound but no one knows for certain as to how these stones were shaped but you do get the impression that they are standing guard for some buried outback creature (too many horror movies?).

And if you're not a believer in dormant lifeforms that are waiting to re-emerge and wreak havoc on mankind you're probably not going to believe that we next visited lifeforms at Lake Thetis that are supposedly 2,000 years old (that's Dave B territory!) with a family history that goes back 3.5 billion years. A stromatolite is basically a living rock formed by a cyanobacteria– so it is both biological and geological. Back in my working days we had a sister company that was I suspect was heavily populated with stromatolites.... but that may be somewhat insulting to the real stromatolites as they are credited with the production of oxygen required for early life (whereas my stromatolites produced largely hot gas). Lake Thetis is one of only five places in the world where these living stromatolites, the oldest known form of life on Earth, can be observed- bearing in mind that they are rocks so it's not exactly an action oriented observation.

We camped near the beach at both JurIen Bay and Dongara and enjoyed a couple of nights of amazing sunsets. There are no monkeys in WA so sunsets and birds may have to be my new photo addictions. And who forgot to tell us it's bush fly season in WA??