Wave Rock

Reading up about wave rock

Wave rock is literally in the middle of nowhere. We took a 400km odd detour just to visit this amazing Australian Icon. The girls were so looking forward to seeing the wave. Reading up on the facts from the brochure Emma filled us in on the way there: “Did you know that the wave is 110m long?” “The rock is made of granite” and “Wave rock is at Hyden”.

Travelling North-East of Albany the drive proved to be quite a pretty and interesting drive so it took longer than anticipated. We passed the magnificant Sterling Ranges, some more pink lakes and many buildings and other structures  that make driving thru the countryside interesting.

This countryside, commonly named 'The Wheatbelt Region' is rich in wheat farms so the girls got to see not only paddock upon paddock of wheat, but also the wheat silos, wheat holding bays, loading facilities at the stations ready to load onto the trains to travel to the Albany port to be loaded on the ships.

Sterling Ranges

 We arrived at Hyden to find a small country town which, like most small country towns, had a real community feel about it. We stopped at the sports ground for morning tea, which looked like a well loved sports club and grounds, which was clear to see that community sports was big in this town. Across the road was where we found some awesome country talent displayed with a story of how life began in Hyden told with metal structures of people, animals and mode of transports. All sorts of scrap metal was used and the attention to detail and creativity used was incredible.

Porcupine

Mother and child

Reading about the statues and history

The mode of transport

Surfing the breakers

It was time to move onto the 'Wave'. Excited we drove 4km out of town and then comenced our walk to the 'wave'. Wave rock is huge; it starts at the 'breakers' which is a smaller version of the wave. Darrin and the girls had so much fun challenging each other to see who could get further up the breaker. It is so steep and the rock surface so smooth which makes it difficult to get up high without sliding back down.
Further along was the 'big wave' it was huge and proved too much of a challenge for the girls to walk even midway up the wave.

Who will win the callenge up the wave

surfing the huge wave!



Wow this is one big wave!



There is so much more to discover than just the 'wave'. The massive rock as a whole is called Hyden rock and the wave sits on the northern face of the rock. We walked further along to see what other unique features Hyden rock has to offer. We found crevices, caves cracks to play in and around. Then Hippo's yawn was just like a hippo yawning -amazing. We walked back along the top of the rock to find round boulders and loose rocks to build towers with. And not to mention the amazing views from the top. It was a fantastic Aussie Icon to discover.

Hippo's yawn

on top of Hyden rock

building our rock castle

Someones front gate display