What I Found at Wave Rock
I recently visited one of WA’s most popular natural tourist attractions, Wave Rock. The rock is located at Hyden, about four hours drive from Perth when you add-in a stop for coffee & restrooms. The journey getting there was every bit as enjoyable & visually inspiring as the rock itself. The countryside was very green after recent good rainfall across the region, & as a vibrant contrast, the canola fields were in bloom with golden yellow flower. With the sun shining through scattered cloud on the day, looking ahead in the distance was like driving into a patchwork quilt, with the sun highlighting the deep greens one minute, & the golden yellows the next.
There are not too many towns along the way to Hyden, which is where Wave Rock is located. The first stop comes about an hour & a half out of Perth in the small town of Brookton. Here the main street of the town is dedicated down one side to a very well preserved historic railway station, & a beautifully maintained park with waterfall, large rotunda pavilion, concrete tables & bench seating, & a well planned garden which was in bloom with bright multicolored flowers. The public restrooms were also very well maintained & clean & tidy, which is important to tourists as it is one place they are all going to visit.
Next stop along the way was Corrigin, again a small town but a welcome stop for tourists to again stretch their legs, fill-up with fresh coffee, & use the facilities. The town was again neat & tidy & a final stop to rest before tackling the last stretch of the journey to Hyden & the rock. The landscape hadn’t really changed since Brookton, which was not what I had anticipated as I thought the amount of green pastures & the number of trees would decline. With my passengers refreshed & seated comfortably back in the car, we set off for Hyden.
The landscape continued to impress me with plenty of beautiful farmland, mainly used for sheep farming & still more beautiful yellow fields of canola. Our total travel time reached over four hours by the time we drove into Hyden’s main street, & the tourist information stop. The detailed signs & map clearly showed us the way through town to our final destination, some six kms out of town.
As we completed the short walk from the car park to Wave Rock, we finally stood in front of the imposing sight we had previously only seen in photographs. Our cameras were put to good use from many different angles, trying to capture every possible feature of the natural wonder that attracts thousands of tourists every year from all around the world. The walk trail is well marked around the rock, & there are metal stairs that take you to the top of the rock for a view across the dam & catchment area that the town uses for water, as well as views to the horizon back across the Hyden region.
Our visit to Wave Rock also included stops at Hippos Yawn, a small cave formation that looks uncannily like a hippo with its mouth wide open. There are also a number of walk trails you can take to see the local bushland & wildflowers in the spring & summer months. The maps from the tourist center are excellent in ensuring you do not miss anything or get yourself lost.
We made the short trip back into Hyden for some lunch before retracing our steps on the journey back home. The scenery again provided constant interest & pleasure as the landscape was just so pretty. More photo opportunities presented themselves, including many parrots feeding beside the road in the afternoon sunlight. We all had a very pleasant day, even though we had spent about eight hours in the car for about three hours worth of time seeing the sights.
Source:ezinearticles.com
