We left Yallingup and set off for the famous Margaret River wine region. In an area such as this, with over 100 vineyards it's certainly difficult to choose where to go even if they don't all operate cellar doors. A chance visit to the big Waterstones on London's Piccadilly a few weeks before our departure saw me pick up the perfect book to see us through this dilemma and guide us for what has become an integral part of our travels: wine. The Glovebox Guide to Wine Touring by Greg Duncan Powell covers 48 Australian wine regions (who knew there were so many?) and has been an invaluable guide to our cellar door visits with maps, contact info and opening hours and even recommending places to line our stomachs. Fear not, we are responsible and whoever isn't tasting gets to drive!! Somehow, it happened that Tom was driving through Margaret River so I had the pleasure of tasting the wines at three lovely vineyards, two from the book and one being somewhere Tom was keen to visit. To quote the opening sentence on the region from our book: "If you were God and you could design a wine region from scratch you'd probably come up with something that looks, tastes and feels like Margaret River." I could tell it was going to be a tough day...
Between us, Tom is definitely the wine connoisseur so I can rely on him to talk knowledgeably with the staff at each cellar door while I make appreciative sounds, quaffing each sample and muttering about tannins and 'The Nose' or bouquet, if you will. In Margaret River we started with Clairault wines and then went on to Brookland Valley, owned by the well-known-back-home Hardy's. Set near a large lake amid lovely gardens, the cellar door itself felt like a National Trust gift shop so we felt compelled to wander around admiring the stuff (much of it not even wine related) before admitting that we just want to taste the stuff, please. A nice lady talked us through the selections and discussed the region with us. She also let us pet Lily, the resident dog of the vineyard so that was lovely.
We made a pitstop for lunch in the lovely country town, Margaret River that gives the region its name and added to our ever expanding collection of leaflets at the visitor centre before heading into the final vineyard. Stella Bella was the one that Tom wanted to visit as he has known of it for a long time, it's a family-run vineyard of great quality and reputation. The cellar door here was a bit more like someone had built a bar in a shed and I don't mean that as a bad thing. It was lovely and a friendly English lady took us through the selections here and we may have acquired a bottle or two.
After all the rigours of wine tasting, it was time to find a place to camp so we headed back toward the coast to Cape Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park and stayed in a wooded campsite run by Department for Environment and Conservation called Conto Beach. In the morning, we were rewarded for our early rise by a close encounter with a kangaroo and her Joey. It was lovely to see them potter around foraging together and we watched them for quite a while before having a hearty breakfast ourselves and setting off for the day's adventure.
This day we went to Cape Leeuwin, the most South Westerly point of Australia and one with the tallest lighthouse. We took a tour of the lighthouse so that we could go to the top of it and admire the views over the spot where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. Following a stop in Augusta, a sleepy, small town for provisions we drove on to Pemberton via one more winery. This time it was Donnelly River Wines and we scored a bottle of red for $7!! Bargain. Pemberton is a lovely town set amid rolling hills and wooded forrest. Such was its charm that we almost immediately chose to spend two nights here. It's worth mentioning at this point that the climate, and as a result the landscape, in this corner of Western Australia are totally different from the rest of the state. There is far more rain here and it is consistently cooler with the breeze coming in from the Southern Ocean making the whole area more lush and green than the northern part of the state.
Another feature that is unique to this area are the impressive Karri trees. These huge, tall straight trees are a sight to behold and we drove part of the dedicated roadway known dramatically as the Karri Forrest Explorer. It was amazing to drive with such huge trees on either side. The region also has some rather famous individual trees, one of which is known as The Gloucester tree. When the forrest was being logged for timber, certain trees were used as lookout points to watch for forrest fires. The Gloucester tree is one such tree, named after the Duke of Gloucester who visited one day, though I doubt he climbed it. Iron pegs had been driven into the tree trunk to form a ladder up the length of the tree, 53 metres to the top where there is a sort of lookout hut on a platform. For some reason, I climbed the thing while, ever wise, Tom waited at the base. The view from the top was spectacular, you can see for miles around and it was fun seeing the birds and other tree tops at that level. Getting down was tough as you more or less have to look down to place your feet on the godforsaken pegs! I was holding on for dear life which goes some way to explaining why my legs still hurt as I write this, three days later.
Having paid entry to one national park to climb the tree, meant we had free entry to another national park. Apparently I am a glutton for punishment as despite the fact my legs felt as though they might explode, I agreed to climb a mountain!! Well, it was more of a rock really but who am I to split hairs when I can claim to have climbed a ruddy tall tree and a mountain in one day?! It was called Mount Chudla after all. After more nice views and a couple of rain showers, it was back to Pemberton to our nice spot in a rather idyllic caravan park as we camped next to a stream, surrounded by nosey ducks.
The following day, we headed to Walpole where we did the Valley of The Giants treetop walk. Not quite as dramatic as it sounds, it is literally a suspended walkway amid the tops of beautiful red tingle trees which can grow to 75 metres. It turns out these trees have very shallow roots, in spite of their height so the treetop walk enables people to admire and enjoy the trees without damaging the roots. What's also lovely is that it is designed to sway in the breeze so to enhance the tree like experience I suppose. From there we set up camp at the charmingly named, Peaceful Bay.
Peaceful Bay is the place where we discovered that our griddle pan makes great toast. It is also the place we had to return to mid-afternoon as I had left my tablet charging at the campsite. Thankfully, we weren't too far away when the realisation hit and even though the couple who camped on the site after us had put the thing in their car, at least they handed it over and I was reunited with my doof (as I call it). Other highlights of the day included a visit to Denmark chocolate company, run by a lovely Swiss lady and Forrest Hill winery, the oldest vineyard in the Great Southern wine region.
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