You kno what I tend to miss most about roadtrips back home? The excitement.... You take a long drive out of town in India, and on the way there are the colourful trucks which are almost breaking down, the occassional village every 20kms or so which is bustling with activity, the sumo's and safari's jam packed with families heading off on a vacation....things that keep you awake while you're in the car! But here.....its just straight road all the way. You travel for 20kms or so, on roads absolutely aligned to scale, then take the occassional left or right, and then move again for the next 20kms. And on the way, you'll only see farmland with sheep or cattle, or dry barren land for miles around. So its absolutely essential that you have friends / family in the car with you, else you'll be stiff bored.

I headed off with my friends up north, about 250kms to a place called 'Cervantes'. There lie these structures called the Pinnacles, which are essentially limestone pillars which rise up from the sand. There are thousands of them scattered around the sandy desert, and its quite an amazing sight. Its not what you expect from looking at the pictures. Apparently someone thought they were stones dropped by aliens...hahah. What got me amazed was that here was a sandy desert, with minimal vegetation, situated right next to the ocean!



It took us about 2 1/2 hrs to get there, we stayed at one of the self contained holiday homes. I've heard of a one horse town, but Cervantes is what I would term as a half horse town. The population must barely be a few hundreds, with just a couple of houses, a few shops and a gas station. The town is named after a ship which was wrecked there, which in turn was named after Miguel de Cervantes (Author of Don Quixote). So it wasn't surprising to find references to Don Quixote everywhere, such as the Don Quixote cafe closeby. We also stopped at the Lake Thetis, is famous cuz it contains Stromatolites (absolutely no idea what they are). On our way back we went to the beach, which was called 'Hangover Bay'. It was weird standing right next to the water with an entire desert behind you.



The night was cold, but it didnt take long for the day to heat up next morning. Before heading back home, we decided to take a look at Jurien Bay, which we thought would be somthing similar to Hangover Bay. But it was a full fledged town, and one of the most prettiest I've seen in a while. It was really like those country side town's you read about in books, with nice lil row houses, children playing on the beach, small cafe's lined up.... I even managed to see a couple of seal's swimming about in the water! Couldn't get a clear picture though, they really weren't too willing to pose for a snap. But the sight of the water, people fishing, the sand....it was like being back home in Kochi.



So it was back home then, the trip was a nice change after the exams. One thing I have to mention is about the kangaroos by the road. They were all dead!! Well, it seems that they just get too excited looking at the car's going by the road, and the moment they get too close...bam! Dumb animals...