Pinnacles and Cevantes (and being a bit grumpy)

We are exploring the coast north of Perth now. We stopped a couple of nights at Cervantes - a small sleepy development with a huge holiday camp... to be honest all the coast is a bit like that... lots of small sleepy developments most of which have some older more ramshackle buildings but they are surrounded by completely new buildings that look or feel like second or holiday homes... We went to the shop in Cervantes for an ice cream and we walked through the small town.. we didn't meet a single soul and yet the holiday camp was absolutely packed to the gills! We would have prefered to be on a smaller less commercial camp but they are less common around here and consquently full... this was ok and we had a nice spot almost on the beach ...

Using the holiday park as the base we went to the Namberg National park to look at the Pinnacles. It was a glowering sky promising more torrentail rain (we had serious rain the previous day)

is a large area of desert with lots of spiky pointy rocks of various sizes (which you are not allowed to climb on). We got up and went really early - so early that when the ranger arrived she asked us if we stayed the night right next to the no overnight camping sign. We explained we were just having breakfast and she was quite chatty.. and then we went to have a look around the Pinnacles. We had already determined that we couldn't take the car as it was a bit of a dirt track even though it was quite flat but we decided we would rather walk it. We lost the walking posts almost immediately and deviated off on our own little adventure. The Pinnacles were quite interesting they were very different some of them looked like they had birthed the alien eggs - with holes in the middle - some of them were quite tall and others with short and pointy.

There was an emu wandering about. Because we were there so early there was hardly anybody there which was really nice and also there was a serious absence of flies which was also a relief.

We spent an hour or so wandering around the stones, taking too many photos and trying to get close ups of the Emu... and then we went back to camp via Thirsty Point which wasn't very exciting except that the road been washed away!! By the time we got back to camp the infestation of youth had reached a critical peak... it was bedlam.. lots of people enjoying themselves and us being grumpy grey nomads... but it was chaos and noisy... but I have to say if you are a family this campsite is perfect - with a pool and plenty of space for ball games and bike riding and an enormous camp kitchen with room to ride your bike in should you need to... just not the place for two people who would rather be bush camping... however what I really like is the friendliness extended even to grumpy old brits like us... hard to not smile and get on with it. 🙂😍🤩🦘 esp when everyone turns out for a spectacular sunset... the colours and the reflections over the sea made this a particulary good one...

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop. More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained. The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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