Day 57
Trip Start
Aug 09, 2011
1
57
68
Trip End
Oct 14, 2011
Hyden, Western Australia, Australia
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
I got up early so I could have a cuppa with Bec before she left for work with the kids...Pete delayed his departure to see us off – very nice!
Felix and I borrowed Peter's ute to do a Coles shop while Oscar had a last play with Billy and Pete and Damian packed up Puffing Billy!
We were on the road by 10:30am! We were off to Wave Rock in Hyden – 360 km!
Pete had photocopied his Melways for us to get out of Perth and hit the right road to Hyden and it went like clock work....
Late lunch, pee stop in Brookton – another funny, little township....it was like time had stood still there....reminded me of Radiator Springs out of “Cars”.....
And then it was simply on and on until we hit Hyden.....not really a long drive in kms, but it just seemed so...lots of unrest in the car today... we arrived around 3:30pm...
So as soon as we had set up camp at the caravan park we went to explore this Wave Rock!
Amazing granite formation really, 15 m high and 110 m long and looked just like a wave frozen in time – created over 60 million years ago by weathering and water erosion and the streaky colour caused by run off from local mineral water springs!
We took plenty “surfing” photos and then went on a circuit walk on top of the rock....they have very cleverly made a dam (in the form of a cascading low, concrete 'fence' all around the rock!), leading all the rainwater into a dam for drinking water in Hyden!
By this time Damian and Oscar had had enough and wanted to go back to camp....but Felix and I still wanted to explore....I had found a new track – called Hippo's Yawn! Felix came to me from examining some waterhole thoroughly and said: “Okay, I got some good news and I've got some close news – which one do you want first”? I chose the good first: “I saw a lizard”! And the close news: “I was so close to a taipan snake, Mum”!! Priceless.....
We continued and had a lovely walk me and my Felix... we discussed whether or not dinosaurs had roamed here once, which ones and what they ate.....and at the end (middle, cause we had to walk back!) the rock formation really looked like a hippo yawning ! The way back was very pretty, lots of blooming wild flowers (thank God for Zyrtec!!), birds and the salmon gumtree, which is a very beautiful variety of gumtree – all salmon coloured trunk – native to this part of the grand land !
Back at camp, whilst Damian was having a snooze and Oscar was at the playground) a German family had set up camp literally almost on top of us!! (Their tent touching our trailer!) Very odd....and it was a big family too, complete with Oma and grandkids running everywhere (read: running over our site constantly!)!! The Vater did absolutely nothing, just sitting there on his rather cumbersome behind, reading a book, while Mutti und Oma ran around setting up camp, cooking dinner etc.... Damian gave them his “look” and they knew......I just didn't get it – the campground was huge, why they had to physically touch our site was unnecessary!!!
I made a nice butter chicken stirfry and found refuge away from our German buddies at the Campers' kitchen area to eat in peace!
Time to say “Gute Nacht”.....
Goodnight Australia........oh, no, can hear the Vater snoring.....like he was in the tent with us......dass ist ja toll!!!!!
Road kills: 378
