Wheatbelt

This is a broad plain which was cleared about 100 years ago to grow wheat.  The annual rainfall is about 35cm (14 inches), right on the lower rainfall limit.  With the normal cycles of nature, droughts are to be expected and hit these farms very severely; one such drought has existed for three years now and many farmers are not going to survive.  I heard on a radio segment that many farmers are getting out but as they cannot realise a decent price for their farm they are leasing it out if they can,  remaining in the homestead but no longer intending to farm to just walking away from it.  As a result, driving through the area one sees dry barren paddocks with perhaps a few sheep picking through what little fodder there may be.  As in many rural areas I have traveled through, many small towns are struggling and the western wheatbelt in WA is no different. 

I stayed two nights at Tressie's Museum and Caravan Park in the town of Karlgarin, 17km west of Hyden, and one of the best caravan parks I've stayed at.  A tornado-like wind a while back lifted his backpackers unit and hurtled it through his park, destroying the unit as well as many of the trees and infrastructure in the park:  In the town of Karlgarin it took the roofs off most of the buildings, with the result that the town may not recover.   The Museum does a guided tour and I found it fascinating!  It is a private museum assembled over many years as indicated by the number and variety of display material, generally illustrating settlement and past life of the area.  The museum also has a gem of a gramophone collection including working models of the early cylinder gramophones, the first I'd ever seen and heard working!  From a collection of 78rpm records, you can request a selection and if they have it, they will play it:  Many years ago my favourite was "The Strawberry Roan" and sure enough, Merv selected it from his racks, placed on one of the wind up gramophones and played it for me!  As a boy, we had this 78 and it was one of my favourites:  I accidently broke it, and while Mum was displeased indeed, no more so than I was.        

The time soon went and so did I, to Wave Rock.  At various places throughout the broad plains, granite domes appear, which originated as granitic extrusions deep under the then surface and from the large crystals in the rock, a very slow cooling mass.  Over time erosion has exposed them to their state today, with one edge of Wave Rock being eroded to the unique shape of a huge wave.  It was relatively unnoticed until 1963 when a photo of it won an exhibit in New York, and today it attracts many tourists to the area.  There is an interpretative trail up to the top of the dome, which is both interesting and an excellent viewing point where the flat landscape is visible for many miles around.  Visible in the view are lakes, many of them dry salt pans with little water.  Another interpretive walk takes you around a nearby walk and explains the recent changes due to land clearing, the main one being the rising of the water table producing these large salt lakes.