it begins

john's surfing wave rock

i am writing this from the campervan. yes. it's true. our road trip has begun.

we left a few hours later then planned, thanks to a very last-minute sale of our car (thank god!) and so didn't quite reach our intended destination of wave rock. but we did get a few hours out of perth and settled on a roadside stop at "gorge rock". the setting ideal- off the road, marked location, and not one "no camping" sign in site. we were the only people in the place, which made it even better.

we didn't really explore gorge rock. at the risk of sounding a bit underwhelmed by most things in WA, the truth is,  we didn't think it was that exciting. the sign posts at the rest area provided us with a bevy of interesting information about the area (like the fact that the swimming hole was dug out by mr. jones, who used his new bobcat for the occasion...). we packed up in the morning and drove to our first "destination": wave rock.

wave rock is one of those places that are cool to see but not worth driving out too if that's all you're going to do. the rock is some 110m long and about 15m high and has been carved into the shape of a wave by the water/erosion over thousands and thousands of years. it's kind of neat. inevitably, we took a "hang 10" photo- as if surfing this rock is at all like surfing in the water. but it seems to be the quintessential photo, so we took it. we scampered to the top of the rock and looked out over the salt lakes (which i think are actually just salt. no water) then made our way back down.

trying not to be eaten by the hippo

now, wave rock isn't the only exciting rock formation in the area. there is a short 2km stroll over to the hippos yawn, so called because, yes, it looks like a hippos mouth when it's yawning (or yelling maybe. but hippos yell doesn't sound as nice).

there were a few other rock-like formations in the area but these required a drive on unsealed roads and frankly we just weren't up to it. we also chose to not pay the 5$ entry fee to "the lace place", an unusual side-show at wave rock. it's apparently the largest collection of lace in the southern hemisphere or something like that. part of me wishes we'd paid the entry fee, just to say that we did. the other part of me is horribly confused as to why a place like wave rock would have such a museum.

needless to say, we got back into the van and kept driving. through vast, incredibly dry fields of harvested wheat and dirty sheep, making our way to esperance- our current location.

xo