Pinnacles Desert Map and Distances

Almost every planning mistake here is a distance mistake. The Pinnacles are not near Perth, Lancelin is not near the Pinnacles, and the wildlife park three departures visit is barely outside the Perth suburbs. Pinnacles sunset tours show which departures cover which of them.

Where the Pinnacles actually are

The field sits at roughly 30.61° south, 115.16° east, inside Nambung National Park on the Western Australian coast. The nearest town is Cervantes, 17 km north along Pinnacles Drive. The nearest city is Perth, 200 km south. There is nothing else within an hour in any direction, which is why the sky is as dark as it is.

Distances from Perth and from Cervantes

Two rows are worth reading twice. Lancelin is 75 km from the desert, so a departure that includes sandboarding is adding roughly ninety minutes of road to the day. And Yanchep is only 50 km from Perth, which is why three departures can stop there without lengthening the trip much at all.

The road north, stop by stop

Everything on this route sits on one road, and the departures differ mainly in how many of these they stop at.

• Yanchep National Park, 50 km — koalas and caves; three departures stop, one states its cave fee is not included.
• Guilderton, 90 km — the Moore River mouth; two evening departures break here.
• Lancelin, 130 km — the sand dunes; four departures stop and three provide boards.
• Nilgen Lookout, 160 km — a coastal viewpoint in Nilgen Nature Reserve; three evening departures stop.
• Hangover Bay, 195 km — a swimming beach inside the national park; three departures stop.
• The Pinnacles, 200 km — the reason for the day.
• Cervantes, 217 km — fuel, lunch, the visitor centre and Lake Thetis four kilometres beyond it.

Inside the park

The desert area has one entry station, one building and one loop. The Discovery Centre sits at the edge of the yellow sand with the car park beside it; the one-way 4.5 km drive leaves from there and returns to it; the 1.5 km walk trail and the 300 m accessible path both start at the same point. You cannot get lost, and you cannot double back on the drive.

The trails page has the distances and grades for each of the three routes.

Which departures visit which places

The pattern is simple once you see it. Evening departures run the coastal stops — Guilderton, Nilgen Lookout, Hangover Bay — because they are killing time usefully until the light is right. Day departures run the activity stops — the wildlife park, the dunes, the lobster town — because they need to fill a day that ends before dark. Private departures do whichever of them you ask for.

Pinnacles Tours lists the stops for every departure, and things to do explains what each place actually is.

What is not near the Pinnacles

Three things get put on itineraries that do not belong on a day here, and all three are distance mistakes.

• Wave Rock is 350 km inland at Hyden, on the other side of Perth. It appears in some operators’ photography because those companies also run tours there; nothing that visits the Pinnacles visits it on the same day.
• The pink lake at Hutt Lagoon is another 300 km north, past Geraldton. Only the seven-day coastal loop in this set gets anywhere near it.
• Rottnest Island is south-west of Perth, in the opposite direction entirely. One departure reaches both in a day, and it does it by flying.

The practical version: everything you can reasonably combine with the pillars sits on the 217 km of coast between Perth and Cervantes, and it is all on one road.

Reading the distances before you book

Two numbers decide whether an itinerary is realistic. The first is 400 km, the round trip from Perth, which is four hours of driving before anybody stops anywhere. The second is one to two hours, which is how long every departure in this set actually allows among the pillars.

Everything else on a day here is filling the difference between the two, and that is not a criticism — the sandboarding, the coast stops and the wildlife park exist because the road is long. What it does mean is that a listing promising six stops and the desert in eight hours is promising you a lot of car park. The travel tips page sets out which stops are worth the minutes.

The map

Pinnacles Drive, Nambung National Park, Cervantes WA 6511, Australia. Getting there has both routes from Perth and the five places guided departures leave from.