Pinnacles Trails and the Desert Drive
There are three ways through the Pinnacles field and one of them is a drive. None is long, none is steep, and the choice between them is really a choice about how close you want to get. Pinnacles day tours from Perth allow one to two hours here, which covers any two of the three.
| Route | Distance | Time | Grade | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Desert View Walk Trail | 1.5 km | 45 min – 1 hr | Bush walk | Nambung National Park |
| Accessible path to the viewing platform | 300 m | 15 min | Class 1 | Nambung National Park |
| Pinnacles Desert Drive | 4.5 km | 20 – 40 min | One-way drive | Nambung National Park |
| Lake Thetis boardwalk | 300 m | 15 min | Boardwalk | Cervantes |
| Lake Thetis loop | 1.5 km | 40 min | Sand and boardwalk | Cervantes |
Desert View Walk Trail — 1.5 km through the pillars
The main walk, and the reason to leave the car. It runs 1.5 km through the field on sand, with the pillars on both sides of you rather than beyond a window. There is no climbing and no gradient worth the name; what makes it tiring in summer is that there is no shade at any point on it.
Allow forty-five minutes to an hour at a walking pace with stops for photographs. It is the route on which the fossilised root casts are visible, and the one where staying on the marked line actually matters.
The 300 m Class 1 accessible path
The first 300 m of the walk is a Class 1 accessible path leading to a viewing platform. Two accessible parking bays sit about 20 m from the accessible toilets and 140 m from the Discovery Centre, and the surface is sealed the whole way. It is a real view rather than a token one — the platform looks out over the field, not at a sign about it.
This is also the honest answer to the accessibility question on this attraction, since every guided departure here states that it is not wheelchair accessible. Visiting the Pinnacles sets out what each tour does and does not carry.
Pinnacles Desert Drive — 4.5 km, one way
A sealed, signposted, one-way loop of about 4.5 km with parking bays at points along it. A standard hire car handles it without difficulty and a coach can drive it, which is why almost every guided departure includes it. The department’s own park page gives 4.3 km for the same trail and its site page gives 4.5 km; both are its figures and the difference does not matter on the ground.
Because it is one-way, a photograph you drive past is a photograph you have lost. Twenty minutes is the minimum; forty is more realistic if you stop.
Walking versus driving the loop
Do both if you have ninety minutes, and in that order: drive it first to see the scale, then walk the trail to feel it. If you only have half an hour, walk — the drive shows you more pillars and the walk shows you what a pillar is. If it is the middle of a summer day or somebody in the car cannot walk far, drive, without hesitation.
Trails a short drive away
Two more, both worth the detour and neither of them long. The Desert View Walk is the only marked trail inside the Pinnacles field itself, so anything else means driving. At Lake Thetis, four kilometres outside Cervantes, a 300-metre boardwalk reaches the microbial reefs and a 1.5-kilometre track loops the lake on sand. Hangover Bay and Kangaroo Point are beach walks rather than trails, on the same road as the desert.
Trail rules that protect the pillars
- Never climb a pillar. The park authority asks visitors to treat them with respect and never to climb these fragile structures.
- Stay on the marked routes. The management plan records that some small hills and root casts have disappeared completely under visitor pressure, and those root casts are the evidence for how the whole field formed.
- No dogs anywhere in the park, on any trail.
- Carry your own water. There is none on any of these routes.
Pinnacles Tours lists every guided departure with how long it allows among the pillars, which is what decides whether you get the walk, the drive or both.