Hyden to Wave Rock 1995

Hyden to Wave Rock, day 5, Monday 30 October 1995. Rain had fallen during the night and north-westerly winds were blowing strongly. This worried me because having fought easterlies all the way from Kondinin, it looked as though the weather had changed and I was to fight westerlies all the way back. I felt discouraged and frustrated by this, and hoped that the weather would continue to change quickly and that I would have at least lighter southerly side-winds. As it turned out, the low pressure system had got stuck in the bight and I was to have headwinds until Thursday.

Wave Rock

Anyway I had a leisurely morning, starting with a big buffet breakfast. Then I set off for Wave Rock, found a real tourist trap with a shop full of the usual hats and stuffed koalas at high prices, and had to pay $2 and go through a turnstile to see the Rock. I walked all over the area, enjoyed the Wave formation, the dam and catchment area. I took the walk trail to the Hippos Yawn, climbed up through the hippo’s throat and up the rock dome, walked that way back to the Wave. There is another less spectacular Wave formation in a little valley if you climb past the reservoir and up over the dome. A few showers fell from time to time and the flies were bad when I got out of the strong wind.

I paid $5 to look at the wildlife park. No-one else was there. The day was warm and muggy by this time and the animals looked a bit sad and lonely in their pens and cages, with flies buzzing around.

I had a talk with a cocky who said ‘Hello George’ quite clearly. There was an eagle with a damaged wing, who had been rescued from beside the road and nursed back to health, but who couldn’t fly properly. There was a Llama, some deer, a koala in a special enclosure which (according to a plaque) had been opened by some government minister a few years ago.

There were kangaroos and emus in an enclosure which you could enter to walk among them. This enclosure abutted the boundary of the park, and a real big wild kangaroo was hanging around outside the fence, wanting to get in and talk to the caged ones.

There were two fat wombats fast asleep in a specially constructed home, and some small wallabies in another pen that could be entered by a spring gate.

Having spent about five hours wandering around the whole Wave Rock area I then considered visiting Mulka’s cave and the humps, shown on the tourist mud map to be just up the road. But in fact the sign (which I hadn’t noticed on my way in) said 18 km, which meant that I would have a 36km round trip. I decided to leave it for another time of better weather, better health and better planning. I was discouraged by the prospect of 61 km of westerly gales the next day and didn’t want to add two hours and 36 km to this rest day. I wimped out and went back to the hotel for a sleep and the usual routine. Later I settled my bill and had a buffet dinner with the second lot of tourists, who seemed to be mostly European this evening.

The bill came to $155, comprising 2 X $48 for the room, 2 X $23 for 2 buffet dinners and $13 for the one buffet breakfast.

Reading at end of day: 3047. 10km for day. Aggregate: 214. Km/day: 43

Charles A. Pierce

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Tags: Hyden, Wave Rock

Hyden to Wave Rock 1995

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