This morning we said goodbye to our beautiful bush chalet and hit the road towards Hyden – a one horse town in the middle of nowhere, that is home to the world-renowned, Wave Rock.
We started our day by briefly heading back into Mount Barker to stock up on food supplies. After a quick shop, we drove back through the Stirling Range for one last view of these awesome mountains, and then on to Lake Grace – home town of the famous Fremantle Dockers star, Nat Fyfe. It was a tiny country town that was good for a piss stop on the way through to Wave Rock – nothing more.
After another hour of boring driving through the wheatbelt, we finally arrived at Hyden. We were starving by now, so we had a quick snack at the local petrol station and then checked in to the Wave Rock Motel. It was a ridiculously hot afternoon, so we turned on the air-conditioning in our room at had a rest until it started to cool down outside. Our room had been recently renovated, so it was quite nice inside. As we were in the middle of nowhere, the TV in the room had very little reception and much to our disappointment, we were unable to watch the televised game of Big Bash cricket.
By late afternoon, the sun had begun to drop enough to ever-so-slightly cool things off, so we drove 5km down the road to where Wave Rock was located. At the park, we bought a $10 entry pass from the kiosk and went in for a look around.
We began walking down a designated walking path for a few minutes before it turned to dirt. We kept walking for a good 20 minutes wondering where this rock was! We finally came across a sign that showed us the way to Wave Rock. It turns out we had gone down the track via Hippo’s Yawn (another rock that somewhat resembles a yawning Hippo) and didn’t even realise! While we were a little lost, we eventually ended up back in the same place we started, and right in front of us stood the majestic Wave Rock!
Wave Rock is a granite cliff that is 15 metres high and 110 metres long. We were lucky that it was a very hot day, so the tourists were nowhere to be seen and we pretty much had the rock to ourselves. We took a few token tourist photos of us “surfing” the wave before continuing on down the path, which winded its way up on top of the rock. From above, the views over the surrounding land were vast, but unfortunately there was nothing to really see. Once we had walked back down, our time at Wave Rock was done. You only need a hour in this place and you’ve seen it all.
For sunset, we jumped back in the car and drove across the road to Lake Magic – a salt lake that is meant to change colour at sunrise and sunset. While it looked like a filthy lake to us, it was still a nice evening looking around there. The Lake Magic website claims you’ll find “some of the best photo opportunities Australia has to offer” here – but I can tell you now, that statement is far from the truth.
After the sun had dipped below the horizon, we headed back to the motel, which also doubled as the only restaurant in town. We had a decent-sized feed, a few drinks and then sat in the common room watching TV for a short while. It wasn’t long before our big day had caught up with us, so we headed back to our room for an early night’s sleep.
DRIVING DETAILS:
- Distance Travelled: 309km (Porongurup >> Hyden)
TnT Travels 