Basti and Lyn

Outback Adventure - Road trip from Perth to Exmouth

We took a long weekend off and made a road trip in Australia. We flew into Perth, rented a car (Ford Focus) and drove about 2,000 km up the coast to end the trip in Exmouth at the Ningaloo Reef. We had only 4 days so it was a truly action-packed adventure.

Day 1: Fremantle and Pinnacles

After a rough overnight flight, we headed to Fremantle for breakfast. A cappuccino and delicious scrambled eggs at Gino's got us off to a great start. 

What we enjoyed from the moment we arrived: Fresh air blowing and sitting outside at reasonable temperature... Fremantle is about 30 minutes from downtown Perth. It is often considered as the port city to Perth and is full of well-preserved architectural heritage. 

After filling our empty stomachs, we headed to Fremantle's market which is crowded with lots of meat, fish, fruit and vegetable sellers... It seems that everything is growing bigger in Australia. Evelyn couldn't resist these giant strawberries!

We found a lot of super-sized stuff. Even the eggs seemed much bigger... Ah, hold on. These are actually Ostrich eggs ;-)

 They also sold souvenirs like these didgeridoos...

We strolled around town towards the marina. Its a very quiet and relaxed town... the perfect start into our adventure.  

Our friends, Cuong and Mel, had recommended us a brewery restaurant by the water called 'Little Creatures' and we had fresh seafood and amazing 'chips' for lunch. 

We were ready to hit the road... We had another 500km to go with the first 250km to a small town called Cervantes near the famous Pinnacles. 

Evelyn started to count the dead kangaroos along the road... she counted 12... well, 12 and 1/2 to be exact!

The further we drove, the worst the weather got and it started raining when we got to the Nanbung National Park. Due to the bad weather and our GPS that didn't work well in the Outback, we missed the exit and drove for another 50km past the entrance to the Pinnacles. When we finally arrived, the rain suddenly stopped... 'When angels travel' ;-)

In the Pinnacles desert, thousands of huge limestone pillars arise from shifting yellow sands, resembling a landscape from a science fiction movie. We seemed to be the only ones in the park and enjoyed walking around the limestones...

We saw two Galah Cockatoos sitting on one of the limestone rocks and Evelyn managed to take some nice shots of them.

Another three hours drive to Geraldton was lying infront of us, we better keep going and especially follow Bastian's parents advice to fill up the car at the gas station in Cervantes right after the National Park. The town turned out to be a "ghost town" with only one gas station and a liquor store. It was about 6.30pm when we arrived there, standing infront of a closed gas station saying "New operating hours"... Fully optimistic, we went to the liquor store to ask for the next gas station. The old lady looked at me and said three words... "You are stuck". No other gas station around town, the next one was about 108km back to Perth. With gas for about 120km left, we were litterally stuck. The town was creepy, we definitely did not want to stay overnight. We risked to drive all the way back in the night. The drive itself was not the easiest, it was all dark and foggy, raining and randomly wild animals would pass the road. Plus, we were both afraid we would not make it to the gas station. But it turned out all to be good and we were able to fill up our car. From here it was another three hours drive to our next stop Geraldton. We finally made it to our hotel just before midnight and could only think of sleeping. Lesson learned: Always have enough gas in your tank!!! Nevertheless, Pinnacles rocked! Distance travelled today: 700km!