TripRoundUnder

Back on the road and we were now heading deep into the South West of WA and the Margaret River area. Renowned for its wineries, beautiful coastline and surfing.

Due to the long drive from Denmark, we decided to camp in a National Park campground called Jarrahdene Campground. This started off quite peacefully, nestled amongst the massive gum trees and a spectacular sunset, but later that evening, unexplained rustling and twigs snapping in the undergrowth had us a little nervous. This was heightened, as we had seen a wild pig on our drive during the day and we quickly decided to finish dinner inside the car. The local possums decided to add to the evening by jumping on our spare tyre and roof, generally making a nuisance of themselves!

We survived the night and next morning, we awoke without a vicious wild pig outside. This was nice and we were soon on the road to Margaret River. On our way, we stopped at Hamelin Beach, well known for being the home of numerous local stingrays and on this particular morning, a rather large shark patrolling the shallows! Don’t worry Mum and Dad, we didn’t go in the water!

We then stocked up on supplies in Margaret River, quickly realising that we might need to embrace the dreadlock hair and no shoes surfer lifestyle if we really wanted to become locals.

Due to the good weather, we quickly did some research on the best beaches to visit and decided that Meelup Beach was the one to aim for. This was a fantastic decision and is now one of our favourite beaches we have been to in WA. It wasn’t too busy, even though it was unreal weather and school holidays and being located in a protected bay, it was perfect to go for a little swim and relax on the beach.

It was now beer and chips/aoili o’clock, so we decided to drive to the next beach over, Eagle Bay and drove up the hill to Eagle Bay brewery, as we thought it would be rude not to visit. We sampled one of their tasting paddles and had fish and chips overlooking the spectacular view of the hills leading down to the sea. A pretty special spot if you ask me!

On the way to a much needed shower awaiting us at Prevelly Beach Caravan Park, we stopped at Canal Rocks near Yallingup. This group of rocks really showcases the awesome power of nature and the sea, channeling the full force of the Indian Ocean. There wasn’t a huge amount of swell on this day, but you could imagine the scenes on a stormy winters day!

Capping off a fantastic day, we spent the evening watching the sun go down over the Prevelly Beach surf break, home of the WSL surf event that was coming to town in a couple of weeks. A beautiful sunset really was a good representation of the day that we had just had.

As per usual, the weather shifted to rain and wind the next day, so we spent the morning working on a job application for Lauren, who was hoping to take on a nursing position in Geraldton. Safe to say, with the amount of paperwork required, we were very keen to not have to repeat it for another position! After completing this, we decided that it was a treat Lauren afternoon, so as per usual, we found a suitable nearby winery and made our way to it. We chose Voyager Estate and had a lovely experience in their cellar door, enjoying a tasting of their premium Cab Sav for Steve and Chardonnay for Lauren. Way to go keeping the gender stereotype going guys! These were delicious and we had another glass sitting by the fire and admiring the beautiful old building. We decided to buy a bottle, which came with advice to cellar it for 20 years… stay tuned to see if that happens, wouldn’t bet on it!

We did very little the next day, giving ourselves a break after a hectic few days of travelling and again caught a lovely Prevelly Beach sunset.

Well rested and still waking up to rain, we decided that it was going to be a winery day and we started by visiting Xanadu wines. Hard to pronounce and one of the longest driveways for a cellar door we had seen was an interesting start, but none of their wines really stood out to us. In saying that, their service was lovely and we did buy a bottle, because it would be rude not to replenish our troopy wine storage!

From here, we made our way to Amelia Park Wines and again had great service from the larger than life cellar door worker. These wines were definitely more to our liking and we again added to our collection with a bottle of shiraz. We again marveled at their impressive entrance to the property and we have decided that one person must have originally decided that ultra impressive and large front entrances were a great idea and the rest of the Margaret River wineries must have copied them!

Our last stop for the day was a place that Steve has been especially keen for, Gralyn Wines, fortified wine specialists! We again had a great tasting experience and decided that a white chocolate fortified white wine deserved to come travelling with us and we bought a bottle.

With our car now substantially heavier, loaded down with half the wine in Margaret River, we decided to make our way closer to Busselton where the troopy was booked in for a service in the coming days. Stay tuned for more adventures as we head closer to Perth!