Wave Rock & Cape le Grand NP

Hi everyone,

Yes, I’m still alive 🙂 I hope you’re all doing well. It’s especially around my b’day that I Miss you all! As a positive note: I got finally some new travel stuff to share with you.

During the Easter break we went to Australia’s South Coast. Habib, my housemate; Joon, a meditation friend; Giorgio a friend from uni/driver during the trip.

As you might well know the distances in Down Under are easily in the order of 800 to 900 km. For the travel route, see the map and follow the blue dots.

Travel madness can start…

So we had about 1.600km to cover in 4.5 days. On the way to Esperance we drove the first half up until close vicinity of famous Wave Rock. The night we spent turned out to be a garbage belt and contaminated lake 🙂 Although when we arrived in the dark it was not visible to our human eyes, but somehow this place didn’t feel appalling. How the human mind can play up.

In the morning I was far too hyper active to get to Wave Rock! Quick breakfast and up to this rock? In fact the cool thing was that we arrived so early in the morning and the large Chinese groups or drunk Australians had not arrived yet. I don’t know, but this is really a piece of art of Mother Nature. A rock in the shape of a wave, stretching over few hundred meters with a tiny curve. This curve makes the rock look like a never ending one, giving it even a better touch. Outlined carpets of mosses and lichens ‘paint’ Wave Rock, but also keep moist for the most incredible insects that inhabit this area.

We spent loads of time to enjoy the wildlife, plants and rock structures here and we already started to run out of time. Our other rock visits were limited to Hippo’s Yawn (yes, it does look like the mouth of a hippo, although less dangerous to climb this throat) and Mulka’s Cave. Whereas most people drive from one rock to the other, we thought that no rock is too far. Our hikes got rewarded with spectacular plant diversity in the salt licks. Unfortunately the surroundings are greatly under estimated by many visitors. Mulka’s Cave reminded me that I’m on aboriginal (Njunga) land and how important these places have been to the indigenous. In the cave you find hand prints with beautiful stories… it’s the cave and the beautiful walks around that makes it again so unique. The story behind the hands is even more intriguing.

Joon & Habib like hiking, Giorgio goes nuts about the geological history, and I’m going crazy about every single plant or insect… that meant we left Hyden much later than we expected, but we didn’t care… we had an amazing time!