11.05.2026

This morning, we climbed the 'Everest' - not the mountain, but our rental car for the next 17 days. It's a 'Ford Everest'. One has to get used to the size. Since it is required for some national parks, we needed a rental car with four-wheel drive. We could try that right away in the sand dunes of Lancelin.

First, a few words about the flower in the second picture. It is a 'Banksia'. There are 170 species of it, and with one exception, they only grow here in Australia.

After we got the rental car, we went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. We then quickly drove out of the city on a six-lane road. Our first destination today was the 'Yanchep National Park', about 50 km away, which was directly on our route. This park, like many others, is ticketed. For this reason, we had already purchased an 'All Parks Pass' for Western Australia online. Our main aim was to see koalas, and with a lot of patience, we captured these photos. There is so much more to discover in this beautiful landscape. In one of the charmingly British-looking houses is this lovely English tea room - simply timeless! The reverence for the royal family is once again evident under the shop sign. The selection of chocolate treats is unbeatable! Not only the visitors like to sit down, but the little parrot also hoped for leftovers. Here, especially black and pink cockatoos can be found. We then decided to join a tour of the 'Cristal Cave'. While we know many, the stalactites here shone in many shades of yellow and sparkled under the right lighting. The next stop was 50 km away at the aforementioned white dunes by the Indian Ocean. The main activities here are sandboarding, which is to race down the dunes on a 'snowboard', or to participate in a guided tour on a quad or buggy. However, we first successfully tested our all-wheel drive. After that, it was about 80 km to Cervantes, a small town amidst dunes by the ocean. On the way there, there were no more towns, only scrubland in the sand, lining the road. Large areas were burned. Here in the town, there are few shopping options, but a 'bottleshop' (for alcoholic beverages) can always be found. The dark beer went perfectly with our first, long-awaited sunset experienced here!