So an early start getting on the road to Esperance, first a pit stop at Coles supermarket to get some ice for the new Esky we have to keep the healthy food nice and fresh as we travel around on our road trip. The plan being (given there is very little of interest on a direct route to Esperance, to stop at Wave Rock. Your other option is Kalgoorlie which would have been interesting but that adds about another 4 hours onto the journey which to be honest I think would be a bit much, so Wave Rock in Hyden it is!!
Apart from a few minor mishaps, driving up the curb, putting on the wipers instead of the indicators not much happens as its almost a straight 400km drive once you get out of the town area. We get to Wave Rock around lunch time, perfect and also around the time we are running out of petrol!! The Rav4 is a bit of a petrol guzzler. Its a 60L tank apparently, and that only lasts 350km roughly, one thing to be cautious of in Australia when driving these sort of places is the lack of petrol so get it while you can!! You definitely don’t want to run out.
After an hour roughly climbing over the rock and getting the usual photo’s and selfies, its good fun watching all the Chinese tourists attempting to get the best photo of the wave and watching them slip down the rock. My travel companions go for it too, and well its a pretty similar picture really and of course I just sit and take a video to capture this moment, very funny! One last look at the Hippo’s yawn and then we head back to the car. Wave Rock is interesting, its a good stop off on the way to Albany or Esperance but be prepared that there is very little else in between. The Salt Lakes in the area are also worth a look.
Wave Rock as you might expect is a rock shaped like a breaking ocean wave. Apparently “wave” is about 15 m high and around 110 m long formed of granite, its pretty darn slippery though in the part forming the wave!! There is a wall above Wave Rock, we thought was to stop people falling off …. however, it actually collects and funnels rainwater to a dam. Tribal history has the rock created by a rainbow serpent and was created in her wake by dragging her swollen body over the land after she had consumed all of the water in the land. (it’s really interesting to me having come from Nepal that the serpent is also prominent in their culture as well as symbolic of water and creating places of importance through the displacement of water… seems that these themes are common worldwide!!).
So, once we have finished Wave Rock we have another 3.5hrs to Esperance roughly, again another very straight drive to get there. It pretty much flies by, as do the insects, birds…. actually at one point I am pretty sure that a bird went straight into the front of the car, I hope not but not stopping to find out. The others sleep off the jet lag, and we make it to Esperance. We have an airbnb in West Beach which is really lovely, not expensive at all and has a lovely lap pool at the front of the house. Anne the owner is lovely, we settle in as does her dog. I have to say not seen anything like that as she attempts to get the dog to go for a walk and having sat in front of the TV in our home for the next few days he puts his paws over the lead and lies flat as Anne drags him across the floor shouting “come on, lets go for a walk… “ looks like the last thing he wants to do!!! Hilarious sight to see.
We take a quick drive to take in the city and see what there is, grab some food and head back for a bite to eat and some sleep! Tomorrow we explore Esperance.
Spin My Own Dreams 