Today we had a four hour drive to Hyden and for a change we took the direct route as the main reason for going to Hyden is to see Wave Rock. We basically just changed driving every hour and stopped for a break to eat our lunch so we arrived at the rock at about 2.30. The temperature has really risen today and it was 34 degrees by the time we pulled into the car park. The rock is 110 metres long and 15 metres high and has been shaped like a wave, hence the name, and water running down the rock during the wet months have dissolved the minerals which has added colour in waves which add to the overall look. Apparently it wasn’t a tourist attraction until the late 1960s when someone won a Kodak Colour Picture competition at the New York fair which featured the rock and started the tourists arriving. There is a walk around and on the top of the rock where you get a view of the dam they have built to collect water as we are now in the outback again where it can be a year between rain showers! They have built a small fence out of stone along the top of the ridge which initially we thought was a 1960s attempt at health and safety but it actually channels the water that falls on the rock into the dam. After we had walked around the top and back along the front of the wave we went to hippos Yawn, I am struggling with the heat so we drove round rather than walked. This is a granite rock that was formally part of a larger outcrop and is the second most visited site in the area – wave rock is the first, it has eroded and looks like a Hippos mouth when open, ie when it is yawning they didn’t tax themselves too much round here when they were naming things! Our final stop was at Mulka’s Cave which is about 20km from Wave Rock. Mulka was the illegitimate son of a woman who fell in love with a man to whom marriage was forbidden. It was believed that as a result of breaking these rules she bore a son with crossed eyes. Even though he grew to be an outstandingly strong man of colossal height his crossed eyes prevented him from aiming a spear accurately and becoming a successful hunter. Out of frustration Mulka turned to catching and eating human children and he became the terror of the district. It was said he lived in Mulka’s cave where the imprints of his hands can still be seen, much higher than those of an ordinary man. his mother became increasingly concerned about Mulka and when she scolded him for his anti-social behaviour he turned on her and killed her, because of this additional disgrace he fled his cave and headed south. He didn’t come to a happy end as the Aboriginal people tracked him down and caught him near Dumbleyung where they speared him, because he didn’t deserve a proper ritual burial they left his body to the ants! The cave contains lots of hand prints and interestingly left hands outnumber right 3 to 2! After we looked at the hand prints for a while which to be honest were not that impressive compared to some we have seen on this trip but they are the biggest example of ancient aboriginal art in Western Australia, so we have seen it, we drove round to the hotel, on the way we saw a sign welcoming us to Hayden which said ‘outback living at its best’ but this was in the middle of a field with no sign of habitation for miles around! We arrived at the hotel which considering it is a 3 star motel we have a very nice room although yet again we have a spa bath in the middle of the room! We had a relax and a drink then went to the bar for something to eat as we have another long drive tomorrow.
