Day: April 28, 2018

An early departure from Bruce Rock got us to Hyden / Wave Rock in time for Ken to get on an important call for work. This gave me an opportunity to do the set up / unhitching of the van with the kids and the little champs are getting into the swing of it, picking their jobs, (putting in the chocks, winding down the legs).

We decides to say 2 nights for a change of pace. The park was very nice and clean. Quaint old building for the office, new but freezing pool, basic play ground but kept them happy.

Opposit the park is a wildlife park, museum and cafe. All of which we enjoyed. Funny place to find the largest lace display in Australia. But was fascinating very well curated and worth the $5 a head entry.

The first evening we were lucky enough to catch a local fundraiser for the kids Canberra trip. An outdoor movie night and sausage sizzle. Was a great night. The locals were very welcoming but a cold snap caught every off guard and we froze.

We got to the end of ‘Coco’ and back to Goldilocks for a quick blast from the desil heater and we were toasty warm again.

Wave Rock and the surrounding rock feature have been beautiful and a very interesting geological interlude.

Could have spent longer here. The area has wonderful bike paths connecting the caravan park with Hyden town (3km), Lake Magic (6km), and other local sights of interested. Unfortunately we only realized this as we left so didn’t fully enjoy this aspect.

 

I had an idea to travel this 300km unsealed road in our planning, it’s what our van (goldilocks) is meant to tackle easily and it’s the most direct route from Hyden to Norseman.

My first google search came up with a listing for the road on dangerous roads.org! But after a couple of tourist focussed sites called it a great drive and Leonie giving the OK, we decided to do it.

It would also cross the ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ and the ‘Holland Track’, skirting the Goldfields – an area I knew to be beautiful.

I made sure to test out the Sat Phone before we left, in case we had any issues as I knew there wasn’t going to be any phone reception, on most maps there isn’t even a road!

The very first section of unsealed road was pretty bad in terms of corrugations, but as soon as we had let our tyres down the ride was a lot more comfortable.

There wasn’t that much traffic on the road, which was to be expected, just a few cars, couple of ther vans and some road trains. Went through our first dust cloud left by a road train – you don’t see much ahead of you for a few seconds!

We had a quick look at the breakaways which had some prectatular rock erosion features and then headed on to where the chap at the IGA in Hyden had recommended – McDermid’s Rock – which turned out to be a cracker.

 

Charlotte and I thought it would be fun and possibly useful for others to review the bakery’s we visit while we hall it around Australia.

Charlotte has selected ‘Custard Tarts’ as the focus of the review and I’m reviewing Coffee – I drink a lot of coffee!

Custard Tart Review – Charlotte

One of my favourite features of the tart was the custard which was very wobbly which is nice and you could just eat the custard and it would be absolutely delicious.

The pastry was crispy and crunchy which went really well with the delicious custard.

Overall the textures were really good, but the pastry was quite sweet and so was the custard so it was a bit like sweet on sweet, otherwise delicious.

Custard – 5

Pastry – 4

Presentation – 4

York Custard Tart Overall – 4

Coffee Review – Ken

My coffee of choice is a long machiato (topped up), but I’ve ran in to lengthy debates/issues in the past trying to order a Long Mach when interstate so have standardised on a flat-white – all parts of Australia should know the ‘Flat White’ – an espresso shot with hot frothed milk.

I like to taste coffee when I drink coffee – so will be ordering a strong flat white i.e. a double shot.

I wasn’t 100% sure my order for a double-shot flat white was understood correctly as English didn’t seem to be the member of staff’s first language.

Turned out they got it – the coffee came with ‘Ex’ on the lid – assumed Extra shot – nice!

Temperature – 5

Strength – 5

Taste – 4

Presentation – 3

York Coffee Overall – 4

Overall a great coffee, the temperature was perfect for me, initially hot enough that I could sip it but not quaff it! There was just a little something about the taste that stopped me awarding it 5 out of 5.