Margaret River

Blimey it’s Monday already and time to move on. We hire a car and head down south towards the Margaret River. After an hour we stop at the rather grandly titled Mandurah Ocean Marina for some delicious fish and ‘lost block’ Semillon. As we travel on, the attractively spaced out urban landscape with plenty of parkland and sailing boat speckled water gives way to a more barren rural stretch of parched brown earth and finally changes once again to the towering Karri forest interspersed with verdant vineyards and blue sky that we were promised. We manage to secure a last minute deal on an apartment that looks ugly from the outside but turns out to be attractive once we get inside. The kids are very excited to be staying somewhere with a staircase for the first time on the trip. It also has 2 bedrooms which pleases the parents too so we extend our stay to 3 nights. The next morning we ‘hit’ the wineries that are excellent if somewhat pricey for both wines and food. Cape Mentelle, owned by Veuve Clicquot, had suitably restrained, well-made wines; Leeuwin was in a beautiful setting with sculptures in the gardens and well-crafted wines too notably the ‘Art Series’ Chardonnay and Riesling; At Xanadu we enjoyed a delicious but expensive lunch yet the wines were commercial and uninteresting; ditto Wise although this was more than compensated for by the excellent views down over the forest to the ocean as well as the delectable local venison (dear deer!?); Vasse Felix laid claim to being the oldest winery in the region with the first vintage back in my birth year of 1967. Sadly that first crop was decimated by birds so the following year they trained falcons to protect the grapes. Unfortunately the falcons flew off but they remain on the label and the wines are now excellent particularly the Shiraz. The last winery of note was Cullen with the only impressive Pinot Noir we tasted in WA.

Time for a beach break @ Hamelin Bay that was beautiful apart from a festering of flies that could only be escaped from with a long underwater swim out to sea. I later learned that this was far more dangerous as Hamelin Bay is one of the best places to watch shoals of stingrays FROM THE SHORE!! (Steve Irwin RIP). We travelled as far as Cape Leeuwin notable for being the point at which the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. The Southern Ocean looked colder and more savage but we didn’t risk the flies/stingrays again to test out the theory. We headed back via a long unmarked forest road to check out the Karri forest up close. Almost grounded the car that we were specifically told not to take off the tarmac and I seemed to be the only one enjoying the splendour of these deciduous monsters – tant pis.