Tag Archives: sand dune

His Clay Art … the Pinnacle Desert.

Pinnacle DesertThe extraordinary ancient rock formations that make up the “Pinnacles ” are located about 245 Km north of Perth near the coastal town of Cervantes on the Indian Ocean. Nambung National Park is home to the Pinnacles Desert, which features a series of limestone formations sporadically scattered over vast yellow, rippled sand dunes.

Regarded as one of Australia’s most unique landscapes, these incredible limestone spiers rise eerily out of the sand, some several metres tall. You can get up close to the Pinnacles on a scenic drive which winds for about 5km through the desert or walk a trail that includes an amazing lookout over the Nambung National Park. It is a park with a 27km stretch of sparkling coastline bordered by rolling ancient sand dunes that extend inland into banksias woodlands. Pretty red river gum trees line the banks of the Nambung River until it disappears into limestone caves. Massive sand dune fields characterise the area near the coast where the Pinnacles Desert lies.  These amazing natural limestone structures, numbering in their tens of thousands, rise like pillars out of the bright yellow sand and can  stand as high as five metres, and were formed approximately 25,000 to 45,000 years ago.  Remarkably, this unique desert was  practically unknown to the wider public until the late 1960’s.

I went to see this brilliant landscape 2 weeks ago. The first thing that struck me was its otherworldly presence, which seems to characterize so many of the sacred places I have visited around the globe. At first, as we traversed the first 2-3 km in our hire car, even though the formations looked visually stunning, I felt a harshness which didn’t reflect a spiritual location. It wasn’t till we reached the final kilometer that I intuited a location on the left of the track, about 150 meters off the road, that had a distinct resonance about it. On closer inspection I could understand why, as it was full of striking rock forms. ( see last 5 photos below ) This “earthly moonscape” certainly offered a never ending diversity of shapes, texture and colour, in this isolated location.

 

 

Pinnacles WA natural sculptural rock formations

Natural sculptural formations at the Nambung National Park

 

 

Pinnacles Australia - fascinating rock formations

Ancient rock formations – Pinnacles, WA

 

 

Pinnacle desert peaks

Limestone structures at “the Pinnacles”

 

 

 

 

Pinnacles rocks at Western Australia with approaching plume cloud

Sacred pinnacles – Nambung National Park

 

 

 

Pinnacles_Desert sculptural looking rock formations

The Pinnacles Desert

 

 

 

Pinnacle Desert Landscape

Pinnacle rock structures

 

 

mystical rocks at pinnacles desert, Nambung

Pinnacle Desert

 

 

Pinnacle conference at Nambung National Park

Rock gathering at Pinnacles

 

 

 

Pinnacle desert galahs - deep pink birds

Pink galahs – Pinnacles

 

 

 

Pinnacle Dreaming

Natural obelisk – Pinnacles, Australia

 

 

 

Sacred Pinnacles in Australia

Pinnacle rock formations

 

 

 

 

Alien rock formation pinnacle desert

Ancient sculptural rock forms

 

 

 

Pinnacle desert natural rock sculptures

Pinnacle Desert

 

 

Pinnacle desert alien visit

Alien like rock formations

 

 

herd of jumbos - rock forms

Rock forms at Pinnacle Desert

 

 

 

king-pinnacle

King Neptune of Pinnacles

 

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