Pinnacles Safety and What to Bring
Nothing here is dangerous and nothing here is difficult. What catches people out is the same short list every time — no shade, no water, a long drive at dusk and a gate you are expected to be through by nine — and every item on it has a fix that takes a minute to arrange. Pinnacles Desert tours from Perth handle most of them for you.
There is no shade at all — and what to do about it
The pillars are up to up to 4 metres tall and nothing else in the field is more than knee high, so there is no shade anywhere on the walk trail and none in the car park. In January the coastal average maximum is 30.1 °C and the station 45 km inland averages 34.7 °C for the same month.
The fix: come in the first two hours after sunrise or the last two before sunset, which is also when the light is worth photographing. In summer that effectively means taking an evening departure rather than a day one. Hat, sunglasses and sunscreen, every month of the year.
Water, fuel and the last services
There is no drinking water in the desert area, no cafe and no fuel. The nearest of all three is Cervantes, 17 km away.
The fix: fill up and buy water before you turn off Indian Ocean Drive. One operator asks travellers to bring a 1.5-litre bottle for the guided walk, which is a reasonable figure for anybody. The toilets at the Discovery Centre are the only ones in the park.
Heat, and the months it matters
December to March is when the heat is the planning constraint rather than a detail. A reviewer on a January day tour describes the temperature cutting their time among the pillars down to quick photographs, which is exactly what happens if you arrive at one in the afternoon in midsummer.
The fix: shift the hour, not the month. The month-by-month page gives the average maximum for each, and every evening departure is in the field after the worst of it has gone.
Driving Indian Ocean Drive at dusk
Kangaroos and emus are active at dawn and dusk along this road, and an evening departure comes home in the dark. This is the single most-cited risk of driving yourself to a sunset at the Pinnacles.
The fix: if you are driving, come for the daylight and leave before the light goes; if you want the sunset and the sky, take a departure and let somebody who drives this road weekly do the last two hours. That is most of the argument for the evening tours in one sentence.
Soft sand, and where not to take a hire car
The Pinnacles Desert Drive itself is sealed and completely fine in any car. The soft sand is elsewhere: the Lancelin dunes are four-wheel-drive country and beach access tracks along this coast bog two-wheel-drives regularly.
Getting out before 9 pm
Visitors are expected to have left the park by 9 pm. In midsummer full astronomical dark does not arrive until 9:00 pm, so a January evening at the Pinnacles is a sunset rather than a stargazing trip, whatever anybody hopes.
The fix: book the sky between April and September, when dark arrives between 6:51 pm and 7:31 pm and you get one to two clear hours inside the deadline. The guided evening departures already time their pickups against sunset for this reason.
Snakes, sun and the small stuff
- Snakes. Seventeen reptile species are recorded in the park. Closed shoes and staying on the marked routes is the whole of the precaution.
- Flies. They are worse in the warm months, and reviewers on these listings mention them at Lancelin and at the desert. A head net costs a few dollars in Cervantes.
- Cold nights. One operator warns that it gets quite cold in the desert in the evening. July overnight minimums average 9.5 °C on the coast and the wind adds to it — take a layer to any evening departure.
- Phone signal is patchy. Download your map and screenshot your voucher before you leave Perth.
None of this makes the Pinnacles a difficult place to visit. It makes it a place worth spending five minutes planning, and Pinnacles Tours sets out which departures take the planning off your hands entirely.