Advertisement
Published: November 26th 2010
We do not wish you to think that the last seven months was just a journey to one of our two favourite places in Australia but here we are in Margaret River, the home of some great wines. No silly discussions about how long we shall stay here, 2 days, maybe 3? We unanimously agree, let’s start with 8 and see how it goes. Our camp site, Taunton Farm, has a cellar door (Pandrini) a five minute walk across a field and is midway between Bussleton and Augusta. As they say, in the thick of it!
Our arrival date Monday 1 November, one day before the Melbourne Cup. After visiting the Pandrini winery we decide to join the Melbourne Cup lunch at the caravan park. Alas no luck at the TAB, but Debby did win a whopping $37 on the sweepstake. We also met a couple of poms who now live in WA and had just won $58,000 on Powerball, to date no luck has rubbed off on us!
When circumnavigating Australia it becomes difficult to decide the best place so far, there are so many, but the Margaret River region on the south west coast of WA has
a lot going for it.
Bussleton to the north is a great town with a magnificent jetty (pity it was closed for repairs) and pristine beaches. The bay of Meelup was just stunning and whilst sitting on the beach enjoying our lunch we sat spellbound for ten minutes as two great whales put on a spectacular show for us. Sorry, no pics, too busy watching.
There are 2 Lighthouses (we did tours of both), Cape Naturaliste in the north and Cape Leeuwin in the south, where the Indian Ocean meets to Southern Ocean, if you are feeling energetic you can walk Cape to Cape, just over 100km, so allow a couple of days!!
We have to say Augusta in the south, somewhat smaller than Bussleton, is also a fantastic spot. We have to say this because Frank & Helene, a couple we met in Broome, took the time to drive us round all the touristy spots, thanks Frank & Helene.
What else to do in Margaret River? Well, it goes without saying there are more wineries than you can throw a stick at, but a few that stood out for us were; “Voyager”, everything about this place was
excellent, take a look at the pics of the gardens…we did however, decline buying a $60 bottle of Cab Sav, although to die for, so ended up with a cheap bottle of Shiraz ($35!). “Knotting Hill”, where we spent some time chatting to the owner and “Barwick Estate” where we had the pleasure of tasting with the wine maker himself. In amongst all the wineries we also visited two breweries, one chocolate factory and one cheese factory, BURP BURP YUM YUM!
Did you know that this region is also famous, or maybe not so famous, for it’s limestone caves, over 100 in all. We visited 2, Mammoth Cave and Lake Cave, both very different but both awesome.
Needless to say, we are sorry, but have to move on, not without a few (well maybe a few more) bottles of the red stuff to sustain us for a short while.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 14; qc: 60; dbt: 0.0529s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Dave
non-member comment
Catching up with Bruce and Sheila
watcha cobbers, Just caught up with the last blog. I've found Bussleton on the map. Seems like you've moved from empty to busy and now back to empty again. There's nothing around it on my atlas bar empty space! Looks another beautiful spot though. I presume you'll now be sticking your chest out and heading back for 5 days at the WACA next week with the barmy army to see more anhialation of ozzy cricket. Off to the villa end of next week for xmas and NY and to stock up the wine cellar for April!!