Rock Chicks

My friend Lee and I decided to take a drive... so we thought a good destination would be Wave Rock in Hyden, which is only about 3 1/2 hours outside of Perth... and another 3 1/2 hours back!  'All this to see a rock?' you might say... well, we are both into rocks in a strange sort of way, and it is not just any rock, it is a giant rock that is in the shape of a wave!!

So as i am not going to Uluru on this trip to Oz, i thought if fitting that i see some important landmark of the country...

Lee began the driving, and then after a while i took over - it was the first time in about 10 months that i have driven a car, so it was a bit odd for the first few minutes, and then i was in my comfort zone.  I don't feel carsick if i am driving - that is probably because i don't distract myself with reading playlists etc.  Lee was a much better DJ than i was, so it was probably for the best that i drive the majority of the way.

Earlier in the week, after a day in the orchard, we passed a guy walking along the road, so we decided to stop and ask him if he wanted a lift... 'No thanks, I am walking to Sydney' he said - in my humorous way, i pointed out to him that is was on the other side of the continent... He seemed to be aware of that... Needless to say, when we were on our way to Wave Rock, i mentioned to Lee that we would probably bump into him as we were going along the same road - and within 2km, there he was... So once again we stopped to offer him a lift, and of course he declined and off we went.

There was not much on the way to Wave Rock, a couple of villages - so small that if you blink you will miss them... a few strange farms where the farmers have odd senses of humour, finding things to do with their old Yut's (bakkie/ 4 x 4 truck)... see pics for evidence.  We were in the wheat belt, so there were fields and fields of wheat, and there were road signs of kangaroos but not the real thing... I kept expecting to see one jumping alongside the car - as in the movie Australia - but no, that did not happen...

We arrived at Wave Rock and the flies were in their hoardes giving us such a warm welcome - everytime i saw someone doing the 'Aussie salute' i could help but laughing my head off!  The Aussie salute is when you wave your hand in front of your face in order to chace flies away, and this is done all the time and by everyone...

We had our picnic in the car to avoid the flies, and then we spent some time walking around the rock area - the views from the top were lovely.  And after taking a ton of pics we were back in the car heading for home, stopping every now and then to take some pics.

We decided that we would stop when we got to the 'walker', and offer him a cup of tea, and this we did.  We found out that his name is Russell, and that he is walking to raise money for charity - you can check out his website (which includes a pic with Lee and myself) for more details... www.thelongwayround.org