We rented a car in Perth and drove to the wave rock near Hyden, WA. It takes four hours to drive more or less. I really enjoyed the scenery. There are lots of sheep ranches and wheat fields. Seeing the wheat fields reminded me of home. That area seems a lot like Southern Alberta only a little more hilly and a lot more trees.
The Wave Rock wasn't quite what I expected. I think I had it confused with another rocky ridge I read about in Frommer's Australia or Lonely Planet or something like that.
The wave portion of the rock is probably only one-two blocks long and approximately 30 feet high. The rock itself is around 5 or 6 km around the circumfrence.
A few feet above the wave there is a stone fence that travels right around the top of the rock. The fence is used to catch rainwater and direct it into a reservoir. It is a genius idea, this reservoir was used for nearly 60 years, then in the 80's another similar catch water reservior was built on a similar rock 20km away. Hyden gets most of its water from the new reservior but is supplimented significantly by the Wave Rock Reservoir.
This is a picture of the reservoir. You can see that they have put up a big chain link fence around it to keep people from swimming or fishing or generally messing in/with the water. I find the rust stains running down from the fence particularly interesting.
As we were walking around on top of the rock, I heard some scratching on the rock behind me and I turned around to see what the commotion was. There was a little yellow snake trying to eat a lizard that looked just like this one. I didn't have time to get close enough or even to get my camera ready so there is no picture.
We saw this lizard later as we were walking around the bottom of the rock. It was a little difficult to get this photo because I had to be so close. There were 6 or 7 lizards just as big, all in the same area. I think they must have all been living under the same rock for protection. Everytime I get into a situation like this I am just kicking myself for not buying that long lens in Hong Kong.
-Gary Milner
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