Nambung National Park is a national park in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, northwest of the state capital Perth, and south of the small coastal town of Cervantes. The park contains the Pinnacles Desert which is an area with thousands of limestone formations called pinnacles.
The park derives its name from an indigenous Australian word possibly meaning crooked or winding. The word was used in 1938 when naming the Nambung River which flows into the park and disappears into a cave system within the limestone.
Nambung National Park also contains beaches at Kangaroo Point and Hangover Bay, as well as coastal dunes and flowering plants in low heathland areas. A boardwalk in the northern area of the park at Lake Thetis allows visitors to view thrombolites which, like stromatolites, are structures built by micro-organisms, especially cyanobacteria. The Pinnacles Desert Discovery Centre features exhibits about the geology of the pinnacles formations and the cultural and natural heritage values of the area.
History
Europeans first visited the area in 1658 when Dutch maps recorded North and South Hummocks on their maps. Phillip Parker King also mentioned the Hummocks in his journals in 1820. The Pinnacles Desert area remained relatively unknown until surveyed in 1934. The national park was created in July 1994 by combining three separate reserve areas gazetted in 1956, 1967 (the Pinnacles) and 1968.
Humpback whales visit the Indian Ocean waters adjacent to the park during their northern and southern migration seasons, while sea lions and dolphins are year-round inhabitants.
The park's flora includes more than 170 angiosperms with a few examples being coastal wattle, sea nymph, acorn banksia, cowslip orchid, ringed wallaby grass and coast hop-bush. The only recorded gymnosperm is the swamp cypress.