A small seaside village to the north of Perth near Jurien Bay. The principal industry in the town is fishing. An arts festival is held every year in the town, usually on the last weekend of October.

Nambung National Park

This park contains one of Australia’s most fascinating landscapes - The Pinnacles Desert. Out of the shifting yellow sands rise thousands of huge limestone pillars, standing in stark contrast to the surrounding low heathlands typical of this coast.

The Pinnacles were first discovered by Major Logue and his stockmen in 1849. They camped near the Nambung River and during the night the cattle strayed. While searching for them the next morning the stockmen came across the Pinnacle Desert.

Jingamia Cave

Watheroo National Park

a very different National Park, Watheroo is composed of sand plain country which supports populations of heath, Mallee and Banksia and a large number of wildflowers in Spring. Jingamia Cave is a shady picnic site. The Cave is formed in chert, and unsealed rock that leads to a vegetation community in the hill very different from the surrounding areas. Climb the rocky outcrops for a view across the bushland.

Badgingarra Nature Trail

Situated in the Badgingarra National Park, the 90 minute walk offers a wildflower display unique to the area including the extremely rare Badgingarra Mallee. A 45 minute detour will reward visitors with magnificent views across the national park.

The trail crosses fairly rugged countryside and includes numerous steep hills. Appropriate supportive footwear is strongly recommended. The best time to see the wildflowers is between August and November.

Hangover Bay

The beaches of Kangaroo Point and Hangover Bay can be reached on the drive out to the Pinnacle Desert. Their pristine white beaches and clear turquoise waters offer an array of watersports and marine life encounters. With its wide sweep of sandy beach, Hangover Bay offers good snorkelling, swimming, windsurfing and surfing. Bottlenose dolphins are common and sea lions can also be occasionally seen. You can launch your boat from the beach.

Kangaroo Point

A picnic shelter, gas barbecue and toilets are provided near the beach at Kangaroo Point, within the Nambung National Park. The area provides views to Cervantes at Thirsty Point and out to sea are the Cervantes Islands. The main point beach continues due north for 1.7 km to the southern end of Nambung Bay.

Lake Thetis

The lake is one of only a few places in the world with living marine stromatolites. The Lake Thetis stromatolites exhibit unusual columnar branching. These narrow, closely spaced and almost parallel columns are extremely rare in modern stromatolites.

Alongside the stromatolites, a diverse array of benthic microbial communities, such as algal mats, inhabit various layers of the lake. Some of these algal mats are associated with the stromatolites while most confine themselves to a particular area such as the high foreshore areas, splash zone or the central basin of the lake.

The lake water is alkaline and nutrient poor but provides an ideal environment for bottom dwelling microbial communities. The lake contains some small fish, amphiods and a few crustacean species adapted to living in highly saline environments.

The lake is situated east of Cervantes, 2 km inland from the Indian ocean.

Places of Interest

Cervantes Islands; Ronsard Bay; Thirsty Point, Cervantes shipwreck (1844), Thirsty Point, Cervantes Islands, Jingamia Cave

About Cervantes

This town takes its name from an American whaling ship, Cervantes, which was wrecked off the coast in 1844. Cervantes was anchored off Thirsty Point, the promontory which lies to the west of the town when a gale blew up and the ship was blown ashore on an island to the south of the point. The ship was not badly damaged but due to difficulty of repairs all the contents were sold on the site. The ship was named after Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote.

The island was named Cervantes and, in 1963, it was given to the small township which had sprung up on the mainland. At the time of naming of the townsite it was thought that the islands had been named Cervantes by the Baudin Expedition of 1801-03 after Miguel de Cervantes, and, as a result, many of the streets received Spanish names.