Dunsborough and Busselton

After Fremantle, we headed South to Dunsborough - just under 300km - passing through Mandurah, Rockingham and Bunbury. Mandurah and Rockingham feel like the new Florida Keys with lots of new housing developments built around inlets and waterways - looked pretty stunning and you'd get a lot of house for your British Pound! We stopped off in Busselton for afternoon Tea - very bright but still a cold chill in the air. Busselton has the longest pier in the Southern Hemisphere at just under 2km. We would be back another day so that Mummy and Daddy could push me all the way along it - and back!

Dunsborough is a great base for visiting the Margaret River region - main things to do are visit the vineyards (only Mum and Dad to taste though!), go fishing, go surfing, go walking and whale watch (in season). A fantastic outdoors place! We stayed in a cottage about 50 metres from the beach which also had access to a shared pool whoich was great for keeping up my swimming. Dunsborough beach is at the southern end of Geographe Bay and so doesn't get any swell of surf - Blue Whales even rest there during their annual migration - but Daddy said we were too late in the year to see any. In Dunsborough, I finally setlled into a good routine again after all my days had been switched to nights - think Mummy and Daddy were pleased when I started sleeping for 10 hours a night - there's so much space here, I just exhaust myself crawling all around it!

After some very unseasonal (cloudy) weather for the first few days, high pressure managed to establish itself and we had some glorious warm days. No humidity and not a cloud in the sky. We went back to Busselton on the first Saturday to walk the pier and trade some paperbacks in the book exchange. The sea-front is just idyllic - very reminiscent of the Carribean with all the blues (sea and sky) and the white beaches.

From Busselton, the Caves Road runs all the way down to Augusta, passing through what must be over one hundred vineyards and the town of Margaret River itself. The coast line is just beach, beach and more beach. I think the Aussie's labelled the wrong side of the country when they came up with Surfer's Paradise.

We visited three Vineyards - Wills Domain, Willespie and Watershed. Not just premium wines on offer but great food too - especially Wills Domain who produced the most fantastic seafood and chorizo platter. Wine purchases for Christmas also meant we were going to have to double the baggage for the trip back to Sydney! We also visited one of the three great capes on our planet - Cape Leeuwin, just south of Augusta, is the most South Westerly tip of Australia where the Indian and Southern oceans meet. More on that in the next entry.

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