We visited a natural wonder of Western Australia today, the spectacular Wave Rock, granite shaped by water. It gave the impression that the earth was twisting.

Day 27, Wednesday, October 2: Wave Rock

This was our third full day trip from Perth with Australian Pinnacle Tours. There were only 12 of us on the big bus, but we got the same driver/guide whom we had on Monday for the Margaret River region. We were not thrilled. He said the same historical stories and the same jokes, even though this time (per our request) he turned his microphone lower.

On top of this, the weather was bad. Cold and rain the whole day.

Leaving Perth at 8 in the morning, we traveled for 2 hours before reaching the historic York, the first town founded in the Avon Valley. Our quick walk there happened mainly under the arcades – yes, it was raining.

Visited Mulka’s Cave, which contains the largest collection of Aboriginal paintings in Western Australia. There was a total of 452 motifs recorded on the wall of the cave, mainly hand stencils that are signatures of those who spent a night in the cave. But we heard the Aboriginal legend of Mulka too, according to which Mulka lived in the cave and the hand motifs were the imprints of his and his victims’ hands.

Had “Aussie style lunch” in the town of Hyden in the Wildflower Shop café. I don’t want to describe this lunch in detail (the taste of chicken wings wasn’t bad, the rice wasn’t good, etc.), but it is worth mentioning that the presentation of the food was low quality. Overall, this lunch (part of the trip package) was so far the worst on our trip.

Connected to the place were two exhibits: the antique lace and the toy soldier collection. Again, the idea wasn’t bad, but the whole place had a musty old smell and haphazard way of presenting the stuff. We could have lived happily without visiting this place.

Finally, we drove to Wave Rock, the main destination of today’s trip. Before reaching it, we stopped – in the rain – by a rock called Hippo’s Yawn (it resembles a yawning hippo).

By the time we got to see the prehistoric rock formation of Wave Rock, the rain had fortunately stopped, but it returned before we were done. It was windy the entire time.

Our first impression was that we were seeing a huge ocean wave that froze in time.

The spectacular multi-colored concave granite rock is over 2700 million years old, 15 meters high, 110 meters long, and shaped like a huge wave, which was carved out by water and gradual erosion. The black, orange and yellow stripes on the face of the rock were caused by the rain washing down chemical deposits over it.

We walked around the rock and even climbed it, taking in all the views.

After a long and wet and windy day of some highs and lows, we arrived back in Perth around 8:30 ready for a good night’s sleep before our next day’s departure for Adelaide.

Overall, the big majority of sites of Western Australia were very nice and we had a good time (except for the very long drives and some unnecessary commentary from a particular guide). I guess, nothing is perfect.