DAY 84 – Hyden Wave Rock

Good Morning Hyden!
 
Low 5°c (41°F) – High 16°c (61°F)
124km
 
We woke this morning to the wind and rain still going at it and a completely grey day.  Both of us, when the phones have had a measly bar of reception, which has been few and far between, have been receiving repeated warnings about weather alerts.  We were aware that a peak of wind and rain would occur around 11.00am and frankly I wasn’t keen to be sitting in the caravan when it hit.  By then most of the vans in overnight would have vacated the park and so we were to be left fairly open to wind gusts.  Sitting in the van when these gusts hit is quite disconcerting as they really rock the van.  Sitting there knowing that a huge branch is hanging over your head when these gusts hit – well that’s a whole other story in addition.  So we got ourselves ready and headed out of camp for a bit of a drive around the area. 
 
The usual calm before the storm was the case this morning with the wind dropping and the sun coming out around 10.00am so we headed just across the road from the caravan park to the Wave Rock entrance to try to get some shots of the rock while the sun was shining.  I’ve seen posts and photos of Wave Rock for many years and always had it on a list of things to see if we ever made it to Western Australia so it was great to get to see it in person.  We were lucky too that with the recent rain water was running down the surface of the curve and as a result the colours were really highlighted. 
 
Wave Rock is a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking ocean wave.  The "wave" is about 15m (49 ft) high and around 110m (360 ft) long.  It forms the north side of a solitary hill, which is known as "Hyden Rock".  This hill, which is a granite inselberg (an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain), and is part of a 160ha (395 acre) nature reserve, Hyden Wildlife Park.  More than 100,000 tourists visit every year. 
 
A wall lies above Wave Rock about halfway up Hyden Rock and follows the contours of the rock surface. It collects and funnels rainwater to a storage dam.  The wall and dam were constructed in December 1928 by the Public Works Department for the colonist settlers of East Karlgarin District.  Both were renovated in 1951 to increase water capacity for the Hyden township.  Such walls are common on many similar rocks in the Wheatbelt.
 
Wave Rock has cultural significance to Ballardong people.  Local tribes believed that wave rock was a creation of the Rainbow Serpent, and was created in her wake by dragging her swollen body over the land after she had consumed all of the water in the land.  They respected this area as an icon of cultural learning; a moral from this Dreamtime tale was to be remembered for life.  The rock is part of a dreaming trail that extends from the south coast near Augusta to the Great Victoria Desert country to the north east.
 
As we were heading back to the car, the rain started so we decided to take a drive out to the road we will be taking tomorrow just to make sure it would be OK.  Satisfied with that after a few kilometers we backtracked to the town of Karlgarin where we had seen some sculptures on the way through.  Driving through the town, the only word that came to mind was “unloved”.  So many run down houses, no grass, no gardens and just junk everywhere.  The funny part was they had an awesome sign, and we remarked that Margaret River should be suffering “Sign Shame” by comparison. 
 
Coming back to Hyden we stopped to take some photos on the driveway of a factory building of an old car that also had fairy lights hanging over it.  We called in to the local bakery to purchase something for lunch and then headed back to the Nature Reserve to have a look at the rest of the area as by now the storms had passed and periodically the sun poked its head through the remaining dark clouds.
 
The Humps and a cave in the area were a bit of a drive out of town however the rain had had such an impact on the road we dared not risk driving through the mud so we turned back, but not before Shane had his opportunity to drive through a couple of floodways that threw up some water as well.
 
Next stop was to Hippo’s Yawn which is part of Hyden Rock and about 12.6m (41 ft) tall.  The rock's resemblance to a yawning hippopotamus led to its name although I have to say – it’s a stretch of the imagination.
 
From Hippos to Weirdo’s is about all I can say about our next stop.  Wave Rock Resort is located across the road and via a strange drive on really poor roads through what can only be described as lakes of milky green water. Passing by the Wave Rock Resort Airport which looks more like a storefront to a suburban factory, you come to the resort.  The accommodation looks more like an aged care facility’s independent living units.  The roads were poorly drained and nothing about the accommodation area gave any indication it had anything to do with Wave Rock.  A rusty military tank as a garden decoration looked completely out of place and there were no real gardens to speak of, just piles of dirt and weeds.  Just down from the accommodation area was a large sandstone pool with individual toilet/shower facilities placed around the edge, each with its own hot water service and shade house – but again this was half finished, full of weeds and bore no reference to the rock itself.  And don’t get me started on the fact that it was too far away from the accommodation with zero walking path to access it.  After driving around a little further we happened across a convention centre and amphitheatre.  It looked unkept and unloved and I couldn’t make any logical sense out of the fact that a metre high wooden fence surrounded the edge of the stage area.  A large toilet block was also in this area but the mud you would have to wade through to get to it made no sense either.  Between all of this was a pile of rusted old machinery, a broken windmill, disassembled children’s play equipment, a bus that obviously once took patrons on tours but has long since been rid of its windows, door and fittings, and an old Vanguard wreck that sat propped on a hill of rubble.  The whole thing made my head hurt and I just wanted to confront the person responsible for the whole design and say WTF were you thinking?????
 
Our final destination was back into town for fuel and photos of sculptures in the main street before returning to camp.  Caravan still in one piece, we got excited for half a second when the sky cleared completely until about 10 minutes later the black clouds were back.  We expected rain but got none and an early night was in order as we were both very cold and tired.