Travelogue : Winding through the Wheatbelt Part II

While we were away we embarked on a 200 km round day trip from Holland’s Track Farm to Hyden, home of Wave Rock, (shown above). It was an exciting day of exploring for us all. Wave Rock is a large natural rock formation shaped like a breaking ocean wave which attracts a large number of Australian and International tourists each year. It was always an exciting place to visit growing up, so it was fun to take my own kids back there. There has been a lot of development around the site since I visited as a kid, almost requiring two days to experience it all.

The visitor centre contains a really well laid out wildlife park, complete with many Australian animals. The workers are generous with their time and happy to let you stroke the koalas or feed some of the other animals for no extra charge. Also of interest is the lace place (a well curated lace collection, including wedding dresses), as well as a miniature soldier museum which my boys loved.

There are a number of other interesting places to explore around Wave Rock, including Hippo’s Yawn (above) where you can climb right through the Hippo’s mouth (past his tonsils) and out the other side. The Humps is also another great place to visit nearby (I remember catching tadpoles there in the stream as a child).

At the Humps is Mulka’s cave, a site of special significance for the local Aboriginal people. The cave (pictured above), contains a large number of Aboriginal handprint stencils. There are also a couple of gnamma holes that you can visit. Last, but not least we visited the Resort to swim in their newly constructed salt lake pool (free of charge). This was a really fun experience as the high salt content of the water means it is incredibly buoyant (it is hard to push your legs under enough to successfully swim). Of course like in the Dead Sea, you can always read a book, if the fancy takes you!

Have you visited the Wave Rock area? What was your favourite experience?