Hyden/Wave Rock

Named after a young sandalwood collector who camped nearby. His name was Hyde - the "N" on the end was a mis-print when it got on the Lands and Survey map.

Prior to 1963 Wave Rock wasn't recognised as an attraction - it was just a useful catchment area for the water supply for the small township of Hyden.

A low stone wall had been built around the rim of the rock channeled rainwater into a dam originally built in 1928 and supplied one "come and get it" tap in Hyden.

This all changed when Jay Hodges, a W.A school principal and amateur photographer won the 1963 Kodak International Colour Picture Competition at the New York International Fair with a photo of the wave formation at Hyden Rock. The photo then featured on the front page of "The Walkabout" magazine and then the cover of National Geographic. That put it on the tourist map and bought economic stability to Hyden.

A group of local farmers put in money for a hotel and then a roadhouse.

It's only 340km east of Perth, so that's where the bulk of the tourists come from nowadays.

This is the peak season - Aug/Sept/Oct with the wildflowers and good temperatures. After that it gets too hot (and more flies) and even the farmers go on holiday during midsummer. The caravan park is still open, so someone must work here and visit here. There isn't a blade of real grass, but a little strip of artificial grass at each site, and in the central play area/amenities.

The camp lady's theory is that flies breed in dead animals, so wherever there is farming there are also dead animals? Update: a Ravensthorp oracle thought they rapidly increased with warmer weather as the kangaroo carcasses heat up. (Similar theory without the farming)

We'd seen plenty of wave rock photos before but were just as impressed by the extent of the huge granite outcrop, and the different features and compositions of it. We had our fly-nets on for the 1st time.

After 8 weeks in the caravan, this was the 1st time that we were parked next to a whizz-bang. (Camper van with sliding door - that's the noise they make every time the sliding door is opened - louder during the night).

Sun 13 Oct

AgAgain

At least some of the local farmers were glad of our 7mm of rain, and we got a little more overnight.

Beside wheat there are barley, oats, lupins and peas grown in the district. When the storage is sealed, CO2 is pumped in to create an inert atmosphere to control the invasion of grain pests.

It's the end of the school holidays here and the caravan park has really emptied out as people head back to Perth.

Today we went 18kms up the road to the next granite outcrop The Humps. The cave drawings at Mulka's Cave were disappointing but the rest of the outcrop was dramatic and the graphics boards on the way to the top were interesting.

We came back to Magic Lake thinking of a swim, but it was only a few inches deep, with sharp salt crystals on the bottom. We went to the Hippo's Yawn formation and will do a couple of walking tracks this arvo. These tracks have been done with a lot of volunteer labour and money from Federal, State, and Shire schemes. 15,000 stainless bolts in the boardwalks over the floodways. Although they only get 12 inches of rain a year, it seems to charge about the place a bit, before eventually seeping into deep aquifers, without ever making it to the sea. A graphics board blamed that rain for the salt, including stats for the number of kilos per hectare. I shall check that one when we get near a phone signal. It did agree that deforestation and replacement with shallow-rooted crops has brought the salt levels closer to the surface.

Mon 14 Oct Hyden - Hopetoun

Drizzle again overnight/a.m so we ducked back to check the Wave before heading out, to see what it looked like wet - it's only a few hundred metres from our camp. (The face of the wave wasn't even wet)

We wanted to check a community caravan park at Varley called the Chicken Ranch because of good reviews, even though it was too close to our last stop, and nothing much notable around. One thing glaringly wrong in the review was the population - there were way more than the 7 claimed. I would think up to 50. As usual, a vast grain storage facility.

A great general store divided into 3, the Sth African proprietor called them the Bunnings section, the Liquor King section, and the IGA.

Diesel, Coffee and a game of pool at the pub at Lake King, then on to Ravensthorpe for lunch. A mountain of tailings outside town at the Mt Cattlin Lithium mine. It was mothballed for a while but is again operating. The other vehicles 1/3 mining and 1/3 caravaners.

Near Hopetoun there is a Nickel mine. It was closed down for years, then re-opened with new technology to reprocess. Unfortunately the "persistent low price" of nickel mean that it is currently mothballed waiting for a price increase. So mining does employ a lot in the area but it it can be boom and bust.

Now at Hopetoun Lynn is currently pacing another site closer to the pub, to see whether it is worth shifting to pick up their weefee. If we can get decent phone reception I think we have enough data to make out the billing month.