Current Mood: Mischievous & Tired

Margeret River our first stop from Perth and our base of operations for the next few days.  The drive down was excellent as Eurocar upgraded us to a ‘mini’ 4wd (Hyundai Tucson), so although we didn’t have the boot space of the other car it was far more comfortable.

We set off along the highway, kicking back and relaxing to the MP3 player – our first stop was a few hours at Bunbury, possibly the largest town south of Perth before you hit the water. We had a nosey around and ended up walking along the boardwalk of the mangroves, which is something like the only one this low down in Oz (or similar?! ;)).  Here we found a Big W and got ourselves a set of Poker Chips so that Em can learn a bit of Texas Hold ‘Em.  There are apparently dolphins that frequent these waters, in the mornin, however we arrived in the afternoon so missed them – obviously!

Lovely town, but not somewhere that leads itself to the scenic idea that we are aiming for – so we moved onto Margaret River.. 

[zp]margaret-river[/zp]

Our hostel was nice, but basic, luckily we were in the quieter block and only shared our kitchen with about 8 others – we had to venture over into Chinatown to get a kettle though and it was chaos.  It was quite late when we arrived, so we shot down to the local where I managed to order a pint, yep, you read it right, a PINT of Stella Artois, which slid down my throat like melted chocolate!  The food wasn’t bad either and it reminded us of a summers day in a classic british pub garden.  That night we went to watch the sun come down at Prevelly Beach before moving onto Surfers Point to watch the diehard boys in action.

The following day we drove back to Bussellton, it was somewhere I wanted to go to and Em was more than willing.  This was everything we were after, the water here is as clear as Thailand – if not clearer and was not as freezing as most places around Australia.  Stretching out for 2km into the Ocean is the Bussellton Jetty, the largest wooden Jetty in the Southern Hemisphere!  Really picturesque, especially when combined with the deep blue sky that we were welcomed with.  Em and I decided to walk to the end and visit the underwater observatory (the UWO), this goes 9metres underwater and is surrounded by various corals and fish that you can watch from the giant reverse (dry!) fishtank.  We stayed in Busselton for ages, mucking around in the sea and taking a few snaps, but as the sun began to dip we returned to Margaret River and went back to Surfers Point to watch the sunset, this time as the wind was up – the surfers were joined by some windsurfers. :)  (Nothing on Little Sarah and Steve though ;))

We were up early the next day (10am!) as our pickup was arriving for our wine tour.  Our guide for the day was Kim and he advised that we were the only two on the all day tour until the afternoon session joins us – one German guy!!!  So off we went, with Kim explaining the many processes of making wine, changing its colour, taste and type – while also letting us know that we were going to consume in excess of 2.5 bottles – EACH!

In the morning we visited 3 wineries, 2 of which we loved and 1 of which tasted horrible (apart from the Port).  We were shown the correct way to smell and taste the wine so we appreciated the whole flavour.  We could choose to spit out each wine if we wanted, but we got our moneys worth and swallowed every tasting (approx 60ish!).  For lunch we went to the Voyagers Estate, one of the richest estates in Margeret River – both Emma and I had the Salmon which they accompanied with a Merlot to wash it down, a whole glass this time though. 

The afternoon we met the German Guy and went to my favourite winery of the day Watershed, where Em and I bought a lovely bottle of Chardonnay – apparently the Red Wine drinkers white?  :?  – the Final winery of the day was one called Moss Bros (not related to the suit hire company!) where we got to taste wine straight from a barrel – Hungarian Oak Barrel to be precise.  The day was rounded off with by a visit to the Margaret River chocolate factory, where we at last found some decent Australian Chocs, our palate was then in for a shock when we chomped down a few bits of Australian Cheese – Yuk!  My god Australians cannot do cheese!!!!!!  We didn’t stay at this one long as you can imagine.

One more nights worth of sleep and then we move on, this time – Augusta!

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