Vineyards and more

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You can meet the most interesting people in the strangest of places and we met one of them today at the public dump point. She was a lady in her late 70’s who, by herself, travels around in a small motorhome.







She was very chatty indeed, telling us about her time working as a construction engineer in one of the big Western Australian mines. We quickly determined she could hold her own and think that our conversation could have gone on for a lot longer.



After updating The Blog at the local library we sat down to look at the tourist map to sort out which vineyards we would indulge in during the afternoon. According to the map there are around 90 of them in the Margaret River region. We settled on 3 – Vasse Felix, Leeuwin Estate and Voyager Estate.







Vasse Felix was the first vineyard to be established in this area in 1967. After a small tasting and purchase we could venture down into The Vault where bottles of varying vintage are on display behind thick glass doors.







The second vineyard, Leeuwin Estate is quite famous for its spectacular alfresco concerts at which an eclectic mix of musicians and entertainers have been performing for over 35 years. More bottles to carry home.







The sheer size of Voyager Estate, its infrastructure as well as the gardens and grounds gave us the “wow” factor. Their Sparkling Chenin Blanc wasn’t bad either!







Along Cave Road we chanced upon Margaret River Venison farm shop: in we went for a tasting of venison & buffalo; out we came with a variety of cryovac products including some venison steaks, buffalo chorizo, venison/cranberry/chestnut sausages and some venison salami. They had some crocodile there as well, but not for tasting and only in large packs - damn!







Back home to Vasse via the Bussel Highway and a stop at Cowaramup for a quick photo shoot of some of the quirky dairy cows that adorn the village.







Travelling further north tomorrow but still on the west coast as we make our way to Mandurah

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