Unable to go to Victoria as originally planned, Glen and I have taken advantage of the booked time off (for Glen) and decided to see a bit more of WA so chose Wave Rock, Esperance, Albany and Katanning.

Day one consisted of driving from Perth to Esperance with a stop off in Hyden to see Wave Rock, which is about halfway between the two places. The full drive is about eight hours long.

To put it in comparison to what we normally do, the four-hour drive was longer than flying from Perth to Sydney. The total eight hour drive was longer than a flight from Perth to Tokyo. Goes to show how big this state is!

The drive was fairly easy and smooth; the roadsides awash with colour, particularly the yellow of wattles and canola fields, and a red carpet of drosera (carnivorous plants).

We arrived at Wave Rock just after midday (and a stop at Hyden Bakery for Glen to get some bread and a hot chicken roll). There’s a lot more to the area than just Wave Rock and Hippo’s Yawn, but alas, we didn’t have time to do the full hike.

We paid our $12 and walked up to Wave Rock, which, despite it just being a big lump of curved rock is really quite impressive. I enjoyed it and think it was actually worth the drive out that way.

From the ground level we could climb onto the top of the rock and walk over the bumpy top surface. A really cool feature were the dips and crevices where rock pools had formed that were filled with water or wildflowers or both. It was very cool.

There was also a sandalwood tree in fruit (first time I’ve seen one) and an ornate dragon!

We then scrambled down the steep slope of the rock then walked back to the car, drove around to Hippo’s Yawn, took some photos and continued on our journey.

We made one more stop at Lake King to refill on fuel, where we made sandwiches and cups of tea and coffee out of the supplies stored in the back of the car.

We then continued on to Esperance, arriving around 5pm as the sun was setting (and we avoided the roos).

After checking into some fairly decent apartment-style accommodation near the water, we walked along the Esplanade (spying a few of the signs that I worked on eight years ago – my first paid interpretation project outside the Zoo) into the town centre.

The guy at check-in gave a list of restaurants open in the evening, suggesting the fish and chip place which is closed on Mondays but they open up for some Sri Lankan people who make and sell takeaway Sri Lankan food.

We bought a Sri Lankan chicken curry and an eggplant curry and they were delicious! What a find! (I’ve also heard that the fish and chips are good too but Sri Lankan wins out any day).

A successful and enjoyable first day!

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