The Pinnacles part of several of our camping toursI had heard about the Pinnacles and seen photos of them and thought, "Crikey, I had better visit there to say I had done that". I wasn’t overly excited about seeing them but just thought I had to. Then I visited them and walked around them, had a very short walk to the viewing platform and saw these limestone formations with the Indian Ocean in the background and my attitude changed.
The raw material for the limestone of the pinnacles came from sea shells in an earlier epoch rich in marine life. These shells were broken down into lime-rich sands which were brought ashore by waves and then carried inland by the wind to form high, mobile dunes. In winter, rain, which is slightly acidic, dissolves small amounts of calcium carbonate as it percolates down through the sand. As the dune dries out during summer, this is precipitated as a cement around grains of sand in the lower levels of the dunes, binding them together and eventually producing a hard limestone rock, known as Tamala Limestone. At the same time, vegetation that became established on the surface, aided this process. Plant roots stabilised the surface, and encouraged a more acidic layer of soil and humus (containing decayed plant and animal matter) to develop over the remaining quartz sand. The acidic soil accelerated the leaching process, and a hard layer of calcrete formed over the softer limestone below. Cracks which formed in the calcrete layer were exploited by plant roots. When water seeped down along these channels, the softer limestone beneath was slowly leached away and the channels gradually filled with quartz sand. This subsurface erosion continued until only the most resilient columns remained. The Pinnacles, then, are the eroded remnants of the formerly thick bed of limestone. As bush fires denuded the higher areas, south-westerly winds carried away the loose quartz sands and left these limestone pillars standing up to three and a half metres high. When seen against their background of golden sand, it is reminiscent of ancient ruins. There will be plenty of photos taken here. I am no photographer but if at any stage of the tour you would like me to take a photo that includes you in it please just let me know and I will be only too pleased to help. (How many times do we go on holidays with family or friends and a person is not included in most of the photos because they are the one taking the photo?) Adventure Tour Itinerary where the Pinnacles are included as part of your tour
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