Well on our latest camping trip to Wave Rock, we drove through a little old bush town called Hyden. The township itself didn't have much going for it, but in the car rest stop in town it was another thing. It was filled with metal people who use to live and work in Hyden, like ....
Here is Sarah in frount of Hyden's very first power station.... Fairdinkum mate!
Jacko, Harry and Sarah next to Marco and Carolina, were a local Italian family who applied for and were granted land in July 1956.Old Don Munday the shearer is shearing a sheep which he did for over 73 years! Strewth that would of been hard yacka, just some info in shearing: In 1892 blade sh
earer Jackie Howe set an Australian record of 321 sheep in a day, it was not until 1949 that a machine shearer Dan Cooper was able to beat this tally a total of 500 fully grown sheep in a day.... bugger that!
Harry holding hands with Harry and his mum Hilda, back in the old days kiddies were taught at home on the farm. Till the first school was built in 1934, but only kiddies who lived within 15 kilometers managed to ride either bikes or horses to get to class fairdinkum.
In late 1924 a young would be settler named Mick mouritz set of for Hyden,
riding his new bike along the faint tracks into what was still virtually a wilderness. He had brought a block of land at Graham Rock and soon settled their, he was part of the first wave of settlers to this district.
Hydey and Toby the horse... John Hyde was a sandlewood cutter who roamed all over Western Australia, around 1920 Hyde was camped near here when two surveyors passed through. They named the rock outcrop near his camp Hyde's Rock, but when the lands department named it's maps it became Hayden Rock. It is now more commonly known as Wave Rock.
Russ and his Bus! Russell Mouritz was the primary Bus driver in the deve
rlopment of local tourism, he once said 'We don't ask Why don't they do it - we are 'they'!'Here are Harrison and Russ driving the Bus! And that was our drive through Hyden, not much more to the town except for this ripper rest stop. But it's really worth the stop here if your ever out having a sunday drive, and don't forget to say g'day to Russ.