Besides being the gateway to the awesome Pinnacles Desert (click here to read), the small town of Cervantes is also home to other small but nice tourist attractions. After a good night rest at Cervantes Lodge & Pinnacles Desert Backpackers Hostel, we went to check out Lake Thetis and Hansen Bay Lookout.

As always we prefer to start out day early beating the rest of “tourist”. Lake Thetis is a 1km drive from the centre of Cervantes.

Lake Thetis. A beautiful 300m wide and 2m deep lake/

About 2km inland from the Indian Ocean, Lake Thetis is famous for being one of a few places in the world with living marine stromatolites.

Stroma what???! In short, stromatalites are one of the earliest forms of life to evolve on earth. Samples from these living organisms indicate similarities with fossils from up to 3 billion years ago. Of course it is best to visit when it’s much drier weather, we went just hours after heavy rain (yes winter!) but it was still a pretty sight.

As we were the only visitors at that time, we enjoyed the stroll around the lake.

If you come here during wild flowers season, the whole area will be much more alive and colourful.

A short 2-minute drive from Lake Thetis is Hansen Bay Lookout point.

The view. Beautiful 360 degrees view as far as Hansen Bay, Cervantes Island, Lake Thetis and Cervantes Township.

After the morning short tour, we left Cervantes and head back towards the city… Via the awesome Indian Ocean Drive once again.

Although we covered only about 100km +- of the Indian Ocean Drive, it was still a nice scenic drive. I particularly love the opportunities to stop and take photos at various small towns/villages and rest stops.

Hope the photos above convince my blog readers that the best way to cover these areas is by renting a car and enjoy the safe and fun driving experience. Just make sure that you have a GPS and obey all the speed limits.

🙂 to be continued…. click here to go back to the Perth Trip list of stories.