After leaving the Hamelin pool we hit the road properly again as we now had to get as far as we could before dark to save time in the morning. We managed to do about 6 hours and just reached Jurien Bay before dark but with the only place we found to stay there being $125 for the night we decided to carry on to Cervantes which was another 20km away. We managed to drive there safely, despite it being dark and without killing any wildlife. We checked into our hostel for the night and were lucky enough to again be in a 4 bed dorm by ourselves. By now all our driving, early mornings and snorkelling was taking its toll on us as it was only 7pm and we both felt shattered, I had such a headache that I was sound asleep by 7:30 and Matt was in bed by 9 as it was so cold and he was trying to keep warm. Matt was extra excited about going to bed as to his surprise his bed had a retro NBA pillow case with all the team logos on. This reminded him of being a kid as he said it must be between 15 and 20 years old because most of the teams have updated their logos now but they were the ones he used to collect on stickers. The pillow case never made it into the laundry in the morning as it's now in a parcel being sent to England to go in Matt's souvenir box. I'm not really sure how that happened, as I never saw anything police officer! Honest!
 
As we'd both been so worn out and I'd fallen asleep so early, neither of us had eaten any tea, so in the morning we decided to use up the noodles we were going to have the night before . This wasn't ideal but it was all the food we had. I can definitely say neither of us have ever fancied eating super noodles at 9am for breakfast but there we were and getting some very funny looks off another couple who were eating sensible breakfast food. 
 
After breakfast we hit the road again to head to the Pinnacles which is one of the wonders of the west coast. It was only 18km from here so driving so much yesterday had really paid off.
The pinnacles are a bit of a mystery but are believed to have formed underground possibly up to 500,000 years ago during the Ice Ages of the Quarternary period. They may have remained buried for most of this time, or have been repeatedly exposed and buried again over the millennia. Evidence suggests that they were exposed around 6000 years ago but were again covered by shifting sands until only a few hundred years ago.
 
Scientists believe that the pinnacles began as shell based dunes which turned to limestone and eventually became the pinnacles but they still cannot explain their shape . Two theories currently exist, both based around plants: one stating they are the remnants of plant roots and the other stating they are a petrified forest, but they are considered controversial and are frequently challenged as new research takes place.
 
Whatever their origin, they certainly are a strange sight and one we had never seen before. We were amazed at just how many there were as we only expected a few. There is a loop track you can drive round which takes you through the 'forest' of pinnacles so we followed that, stopping to take lots of photos. It was really odd seeing them up close as they look like they should be quite fragile but are in fact extremely solid! Matt found it very funny that many of them looked quite rude and we couldn't believe there was one that was nearly 3 times my height, making it nearly 5m tall!!! It was an interesting visit but a brief one as once you have driven round the loop you're pretty much done.
 
The final stop of our West Coast road trip was at Lancelin. This is only a small town but it is very well known for its huge area of sand dunes which people flock to in order to have a go at sand boarding or to thrash out their motorbikes and quad bikes! We stopped at a shop to hire some sand boards and made our way there . There were already quite a few people there, mostly with quads and bikes but, as it is so big, there was plenty of space for us too! We chose an area that looked fairly gentle for our first attempt and made our way up. I was pretty nervous at first but Matt was super excited and got stuck in straight away! After watching him a few times I built up the courage to have a go myself and it was far less scary than I had thought! The worst part, in fact, was having to climb back up each time! After a few goes on that slope, we decided we were ready for something a little steeper and had our eyes on an area on another dune. We traipsed over to it, avoiding the vehicles and knew as soon as we started climbing that this was going to be much steeper and therefore more exhilarating! I went for it straight away and it was brilliant! As it was steeper, we went much faster and a lot further! Of course going faster meant Matt fell off his a few times which was very funny, especially as he wasn't hurting himself falling into the soft sand . Matt was showing off a bit though as the boards were sit down ones but he decided to stand on his. To be fair, he was doing pretty well at it even though normally your feet would be strapped to the board to do that. We had a number of goes on that slope before deciding that we really should get back on the road as we were still an hour or so away from Fremantle. Not only that our legs were pretty tired after walking up the dunes so much. So we returned our boards and set off on our final journey! It was a good few hours fun for just $10 each to rent the boards.
 
Our West Coast trip had been fantastic; the perfect way to end our adventures Down Under. Many people told us that the West Coast is better than the East Coast but they are so different you can't really compare them. It's certainly quieter but they are equally as beautiful. We really enjoyed travelling along both coasts and experiencing the many different activities each has to offer and would recommend them both to other travellers.