9 Jun 2023 - Perth Day 2: The Amazing Wave Rock

The first time I saw a picture of Wave Rock was about 25 years ago on a Singapore Airlines wall calendar.  At that time, I had been telling myself that I will visit this place one of this day.  So today is THE DAY!  Wave Rock is simply amazing, despite the long drive from Perth.

Wave Rock looks like a giant surf wave of multicoloured granite about to crash onto the bush below.  It’s believed this amazing formation was more than 2,700 million years in the making.

Wave Rock rises 15 metres from the ground and more than 110 metres long.

At the end of Wave Rock, we came to Hyden Water Supply Dam and Catchment.  The dam was constructed in December 1928 to serve the original settlers of East Karlgarin District.  In 1951, the capacity was increased to service the Hyden Township.  There are steps here for visitors to climb to the top of Wave Rock (or Hyden Rock).

The moment we reached the top of Wave Rock, WOW!  The views from here were simply breathtaking.

Before the trip, I did not expect to have such a spectacular 360 degree panoramic view on the top of Wave Rock. Highly recommended!

All around the Wave Rock, if you looked closely down to the ground, you could see something "magical".

I used my iPhone 14 Pro to zoom in to the ground and following were what I saw. Amazing!

We followed the markers along the trail and came across a site where there were many cairns (man-made pile or stack of stones).

We did it once in Iceland and we decided to stack one here as well.

Further down the trail, there were some huge boulders and a few of them resemble the Remarkable Rocks that we saw in Kangaroo Island during our previous trip, but much smaller compared to that.

We then walked along the edge of Wave Rock to return to the steps where we climbed up earlier.

The view of Wave Rock from the top presented us with another perspective, which is equally spectacular.

Some facts about Wave Rock that I extracted from the internet.

"According to geologists, the particular shape of the rock was formed by subsurface chemical weathering followed by removal of the soft weathered granite by fluvial erosion; this weathering occurred below ground level before it was exposed.  The colours of the rock were produced by the rain chemical deposits (carbonates and iron hydroxide) down the face, forming vertical stripes of greys reds and yellows.

Wave Rock is made up of variably textured, medium and coarse-grained porphyritic granite (igneous rock with embedded crystals).

Although most of the stripes of colour on the rock are due to chemical reactions, the black/brown stripes are from discolouration from the algae that lives on the rock.

The rock is of cultural significance to the Ballardong people and they have a theory as to how the rock was formed. They believe that the Rainbow Serpent drank all the water in the land and then dragged her swollen body over it causing the shape of the rock to be formed."

Before leaving, Jerlene and Javier decided to take one last photo of this amazing rock formation.

Below is a video compilation of our visit to Wave Rock.  Enjoy!

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