How To Get To Wave Rock

Wave Rock and the nearby small town of Hyden are under four hours by road from Perth, OR one hour by air in the south west of Western Australia. It has a twice weekly public bus service, regular tourist coaches and a steady stream of self drive visitors on the sealed roads. The train is now only seasonal - for wheat - and no longer carries passengers.

Leaving Perth eastward along the Great Eastern Highway, as you drive up Greenmount Hill in the Darling Range, you are climbing up onto the oldest plateau on earth: a huge slab of granite, part of ancient Gondawana, sitting in the sun, wind and rain for more than a thousand million years. It has eroded down into the soils of the valleys, and the chains of lakes, and the old blind volcanos like Hyden Rock have been exposed.

Make this journey inland in the afternoon, if you can, and watch the sun reflected on the roadside tree trunks. They change as the rainfall declines: the fossil temperate rainforest strip of Grey Jarrah along the plateau edge, to the ghostly York Gums inland, going inland to shiny Salmon Gums and stumpy Mallee near Corrigin, then the rolling, low sand plain heath near Hyden and beyond.

Scroll down for information on routes, hire car and air charter companies, and tourist coaches that visit Wave Rock.

TRAVELLING BY ROAD

• FROM PERTH'S NORTHERN SUBURBS: 4 hours drive Through the Jarrah Forest of the Darling Ranges to historic YORK (settled 1843) in the Wheatbelt, across the grazing farmlands and lake chains to Quairading (1900s)
  

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• Left, typical wheatbelt country browned off in summer.

• FROM PERTH'S SOUTHERN SUBURBS: 31/4 hours drive  starting along Albany highway through the Wheatbelt via BROOKTON·  

• Both routes then take you through Corrigin, the famous dog-in-a-ute town (1910s) - call in at the nearby dog cemetery;  then to Wave Rock 3 kms east of the wheat/sheep farming town of Hyden (1920s).

Drive carefully, especially watch out for kangaroo and emu road hazards at dusk and night. There are many kangaroos which have jumped in front of cars. If this happens control your braking IN A STRAIGHT LINE ON THE ROAD SURFACE. If you do this and hit a "roo" your car might be dented but you'll be alive. NO MATTER HOW BIG OR CUTE THE "ROO" IS, DO NOT SWERVE at speed. Once your car is swerving on the gravel edge at speed, it is likely you will lose control. Better a live visitor than a live "roo".  The open road speed limit is 110 kilometres per hour. Slow down to the usual 50 kilometre per hour limit in most of the country towns you pass through. 

There is a modern shopping centre with supermarket at Hyden however it is recommended you prepare your journey to Wave Rock:

• Drinks (caffeine is good for drivers)

• Water in your windscreen fluid reservoir with a drop of detergent.

• Clean windscreen (it's better traveling east from 10.00am and west from sunrise.)

• Sunglasses, camera, binoculars

• Torch

• First Aid kit

• Limited cash ($50 should do for emergency)

• Charged mobile phone batteries.

• CDMA mobile phone (GSM won't work in the outback)

• Tyre inflation pressure

• Fuel

• Radiator water

• Lubricants.

Stop at least every two hours for a break.  Free coffee for the driver is provided at many "driver reviver" fuel stations along the way.

HIRE CARS SEEN AT WAVE ROCK: