Sunday, June 1, 2014

To Hyden and Wave Rock

Today was a lot of road time.  We left Albany this morning about 9:00 AM after a nice breakfast at the Dome.  The Dome is an Australian franchise that serves breakfast and lunch along with espresso coffee.

We drove about 400 kilometers through the Stirling Mountain Range and through ranch and farming areas.  It was a nice drive with stops in a couple of small towns enroute for snacks and lunch.

DSC_4558

We passed a dutch windmill at one point.  It was at a ranch and B&B.

DSC_4566

The fields had been newly planted with (we believe) wheat.  This is a big wheat area as well as cattle and sheep.

DSC_4567

Some of the interesting flora we saw on the way.

These are a type of gum or eucalyptus tree.  What is interesting is all the leaves grow at the ends/tops of the branches.

DSC_4575

In Pingrup, there was a city park with lots of flowering plants and bushes.

DSC_4578

DSC_4579

The flowers on this bush were 1/8 inch. 

DSC_4580

DSC_4581

There were two types of Banksia

DSC_4583

DSC_4585

Don’t know what this is, but the flowers are small.

DSC_4593

These flowers we very unusual.  The size of a hand.

DSC_4595

This is the post office at Pinkrup.  Notice the boxes on the side of the building.

DSC_4600

We arrived in Hyden in mid afternoon leaving plenty of time to visit wave rock.  This is a natural rock formation, that was formed through geologic action.

DSC_4604

DSC_4611

This is the face of an outcropping of rocks in the area.  It was interesting to walk along the face of this “wave” without worrying about getting wet.

In another section of the park is Hippo Yawn.  This was caused by the expansion of natural salts contained in the rock.  It cracked from the inside out, causing this Hippopotamus mouth.

DSC_4620

About 20 kilometers from Wave Rock was Mulka’s Cave.  This is a place you can see aboriginal cave paintings.  It was fascinating, although hard to see the paintings because it was fairly dark inside.  There were over 400 inside but we were only able to see a small number of them.

DSC_4634

Here are a couple of examples

DSC_4623

DSC_4625

We ended the day watching the sun set as we drove back to our motel for the night.  This is our first sunset because for most of our trip the skies have been cloudy.

DSC_4640

DSC_4644

Tomorrow we head back to Perth.

2 comments:

  1. It's been so nice "traveling" with you ... always good to be on Building Memories trips! Enjoy your time ... you'll have time to sleep and rest up when you get home!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you are enjoying the blog. As you can see from the June 2 entry, we kind of rested up a little. Unfortunately, our trip is coming to an end.

      Delete