The story of this place
In Nambung National Park north of Perth, thousands of limestone pillars rise from a desert of golden sand, some as tall as 3.5 metres. They look like the ruins of a lost civilization — which is exactly what Dutch sailors in the 17th century thought when they spotted them from the sea. Early European explorers reported the 'lost city' with its columns and ruins, not realising they were looking at natural limestone formations created by millions of years of chemical leaching and wind erosion.
The Pinnacles formed over 25,000 to 30,000 years as acidic groundwater dissolved limestone rock, leaving harder cores standing as the sand around them was blown away by the Southern Ocean winds. Different theories explain their exact formation; the process is still debated. Aboriginal people of the Yued nation knew this landscape intimately — shell middens around the edges of the park indicate coastal camps for thousands of years. Today, particularly at sunrise and sunset when the yellow sand turns orange and shadows pool between the pillars, the Pinnacles create one of Australia's most otherworldly landscapes.