Hyden to Kalgoorlie - Wave Rock

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We had the vehicles re-packed and ready to go by about 8.10am this morning. We drove back out to the caravan park to hand our keys in, parked the vehicles and then took the short Wave Rock Walk to view the iconic rock feature that certainly does look like a wave about to break. Damn, we should have aimed for even earlier because there were other tourists there even just after 8.00am in the morning. At least we were ahead of the coach tours visiting from Perth!

With a bit of patience and some judicious cropping – and no doubt some photoshopping later on? – we managed to take some good photos of Wave Rock. We had to laugh at the Chinese girls taking posed photos. Lots of different poses! The photographer was instructing her subject how to pose but she just wasn’t getting it. Eventually the photographer had to demonstrate for her exactly how she should pose for the photo. Hilarious!

With two or three shots taken (rather than two or three dozen!) we ventured on to the Hyden Rock Walk up onto the top of the rock. What we did not realise before our visit is that the Wave Rock feature is such a small component of the much larger Hyden Rock. The other thing we had no idea about is the Hyden Dam. Damn, in the late 1920s when Hyden was first settled they decided the granite outcrop would make a great catchment area for a reservoir so they built a dam and then they built a low wall over most of the top of the rock to channel rain water to the dam! They also mined granite from the top of the rock by blasting it out with dynamite. Management of the area has been somewhat more sensitive since the tourist potential was recognized in the 1960s.

Back at the face of Wave Rock the Chinese girls were still going with their photo shoot … in new outfits and with a couple more recruits. Tracey stopped to talk with a couple of other tourists and offered to take a photo of them both in front of the rock. Oh dear, we were inadvertently photo bombing the photo shoot and were being shooed out of the way. Meanwhile Bernie, Cathy and Steve were watching the girls from the other side going through their poses. The striding up the wave pose, the slogging along with my back-pack pose, the looking back over the shoulder pose and on and on and on!

Catching up with the others they told me that they had been passed by a couple who were like – ‘Where’s Wave Rock?’ We are not sure, but they ‘may’ have walked from the Hippo’s Yawn car park? Because if they were parked in the Wave Rock car park it would be pretty hard to miss the track to Wave Rock!!

We completed the Hippo’s Yawn Loop heading off to the east to walk a flat and easy trail that runs just over a kilometre along the edge of the outcrop. We arrived at Hippo’s Yawn which does indeed look like a wide open mouth. We returned to the Wave Rock car park via the southern section of the Wave Rock Walk Circuit. As we walked this route we were admiring the beautiful salmon gums (Eucalyptus salmonophloia). These gums have beautiful burnished copper-like trunks and their branches form an elegant canopy.

We took the truck to the 24-hour BP fuel depot to top up the tank. Bernie’s research had discovered that diesel was sixteeen cents/litre cheaper at the depot than at the United Petrol Station. The price difference was not as large on unleaded so Cathy and Steve filled up there.

Next stop the Bush Bakehouse for morning tea and some lunch for later on when we are in the middle of nowhere between Hyden and Kalgoorlie.

We started heading north on Lovering Road arriving at The Humps and Mulka’s Cave about 16 kilometres out of Hyden. We’re not sure how many visitors make their way out to this other granite outcrop but since it was on our way we stopped in to have look finding ourselves the only people at the site. Mulka’s Cave is one of Western Australia’s most significant Aboriginal rock art sites. And, it’s accessible which was surprising. The cave contains around 450 separate handprints and images on the walls of the two main chambers. To the untrained eye it was hard to identify hundreds of handprints but we could certainly see several well-defined prints. Amazing.

With the morning getting away from us and nearly 300 kilometres to travel to our beds for tonight we didn’t have time to do either of the trails at this site in full. We did however walk part of the Kalari Trail which took us around to the flank of the rock where we could see the humps for which The Humps is named.

Tracey offered to drive from The Humps despite the fact that she would have to drive on the unmade road back to Lovering Road. Gotta get some dirt road driving experience some time?! And wouldn’t you know it, back on Lovering Road tootling along on a lovely bitumen road … until it ran out and Tracey was driving on dirt again.

Lovering Road soon became Sedgewick Road and then Woolocutty Soak Road for 64 kilometres of dirt road driving. The road was just about dead straight except for one circuitous half circle we had to negotiate at one stage. We think maybe that was the road going around the soak/swamp??

Continuing north we merged onto the Emu Fence Road. There was very little traffic heading south, we only passed four vehicles in 130 kilometres of driving. We had been worried about wildlife, particularly emus after a comment the staff at Hyden Visitor Centre made, but we only saw one unidentifiable animal. Definitely not a kangaroo or an emu, maybe a feral dog??

After we crossed the Marvel Loch-Forrestania Road we encountered a few mining road trains. Fortunately the ones pointing in the same direction as us were pulled over so Tracey didn’t have to worry about sitting behind them in their dust or, heaven forbid, consider overtaking one … on a dirt road!

Finally we reached the Great Eastern Highway and turned right onto its bitumen surface. Only a short distance on the highway and we found a parking area to pull into to eat a tailgate lunch. It wasn’t pretty but at least we were in a spot well off the highway where we could eat the focaccias we had purchased this morning while we watched road trains thunder by! At least the sun was shining.

After eating our lunch Bernie took the wheel again for the final leg to Kalgoorlie. We may have been back on sealed road but the quality of the surface was about the worst we have encountered in WA. The bitumen was (at least) as corrugated as Emu Fence Road had been! Tracey gave up trying to make a head start on the travel diary in the truck – it was just too bumpy. Not too bumpy to fall asleep though!

At one stage Bernie thought he was going to have to follow a road train all the way to Kalgoorlie, the road surface and road width making it too scary to attempt to pass a 53.5 metre vehicle. Fortunately the road surface improved as we travelled closer to Kalgoorlie AND there were sections with overtaking lanes.

We pulled into the Rydges Hotel at 3.45pm, checked in, unloaded the vehicles and then hit the pool. When we booked the Rydges, the fact that it has a pool was a deciding factor. Hmmn, it could be really hot in Kalgoorlie maybe we should stay somewhere with a pool? And when we set out on our journey nearly four weeks ago it WAS hot, really hot in Kalgoorlie. When we arrived today it was only 22°C with a cool breeze blowing. Damn it, we are going in that pool anyway!

Bernie Googled restaurants for dinner and told us that there is a Thai Pub with a 4.2 rating, 20 minutes walk from the Rydges. Off we went at 6.00pm looking forward to Thai food. We found the pub and ordered our food at the take-away window, saying that we would eat in at one of the tables out in the back room. We ordered drinks at the bar and made our way to a table.

Our entrée of four pork satay sticks and four spring rolls to share arrived quickly and after one satay and one spring roll each our appetites were piqued. We waited and waited and waited for our mains. We joked that they must’ve been making the beef massaman curry from scratch … or were out catching the cow.

At last two plates of Pad Thai prawn arrived. Cathy tucked into one and Bernie and Tracey started on the other. Still we waited for the beef massaman curry. Eventually, the rice arrived along with two bowls of curry. Yup, they must have made it from scratch AFTER we ordered it – the potato was still just about raw!!! If only they had helped it along in the microwave. I’m sure we would not have known that the potato had been started in the microwave before adding it to the beef and curry but we sure could tell that the potato was not cooked enough. Such a shame as the curry sauce was deliciously fragrant but potato is not a vegetable you cannot enjoy nearly raw. Ah well, at least it made a change from deep fried food!



Steps: 15,809 (10.43kms)

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