Get the tastebuds ready!
We made it to the Margaret River region which is famous for food and wine – I don’t know how many wineries are there, which are open to the public and what else they’ve to offer… First we visited a vineyard with a fabulous garden - lovely roses and well manicured. They even employ 8 gardeners so I think they concentrate more on the garden than on their wine. But I can’t proof it as we didn’t taste any wine. But we learnt one feature of the roses and why most wine rows have a rose at the beginning and the end – the roses are more sensitive to any bugs or so. They are used as the early warning sights for any harmful insects…
At the next winery we purchase a tasting tray with 6 different wines and we only liked three. But they had a nice garden as well but the best toilets I’ve ever seen. You have to go to the toilets even if you don’t have to wee. They are fantastic. Every toilet was separate and had their own
washing basin and pictures hanging from the wall. It felt like being in an antique store or so.
Margaret River does not only produce wine, there are also cheese factories, chocolate factories and breweries. The tasting tray at the brewery contained 6+1 beer. The one beer is the special beer and it was named “for the Ashes” – thought to be a good omen for the Ashes-series but I’m not sure what they’re doing with the beer now as Australia lost the series… Anyway as I don’t understand crickets I didn’t like the beer either. At the chocolate fabric we ate so much chocolate until we were sick and could go no
further. We only bought cheese from the cheese factory directly and Tom was happy when we left their showroom.
After all these tastings we had to do some walking again and went to the Ellensbrook Homestead. A house which was built early 1900 by one of the Bussell’ brothers. But the homestead was not open so we walked to the little grotto nearby. The grotto was beautiful and it has an aboriginal story behind it. The story was written in a diary – hopefully I can remember. It’s said that one women liked to explore the surroundings and went often to places she should not
go. One day she told that she saw a god in the waters and everyone was shocked and said that trouble is near. This woman was promised to be the second wife to the eldest but she didn’t want to. She escaped with one male, hiding at the grotto but the tribe came after them. They killed the man and she was returned to the tribe and had to do the dirty work. After a while she died from exhaustion and separation. Her soul returned to the grotto where her mate was waiting. It’s possible to hear their laughter…
Then we headed to the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse but only walked around the lighthouse enjoying the views from the cliff. At one place we were wondering where the kids are – we could hear kids screaming and it sounded as it was coming from below but nobody was seen. Just a little further we noticed the kids – it was a sea-lion colony. They were living on
the rocks beneath the cliff and had their swim school and made the noises!
The Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park offers a long distance walk – the 135km Cape to Cape track. This walk traverses spectacular coastal scenery – we just did little parts of it - probably 3km up at the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse and the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse and around 2km at Hamelin Bay. At Hamelin Bay we met a guy who was doing the hike.
Next stop was again on the list of my mum – the Jetty in Busselton. The jetty should be the longest
in the Southern Hemisphere with 1.84km. And it has an Underwater Observatory at the head. The Observatory is only open at calm seas as it is 6-8m under water on the ocean floor. But we were disappointed – no jetty as it was still closed for renovations and restoration. It was planned to be open by early December (ready for school holidays) but it was not. May be they can’t even make the official opening in February 2011.
Then it was time to find our spot for the night… 
We headed to the Tuart forest. The tuart tree is a giant tree and only grows in this part. We had a swim before we drove to Donnybrook – the home of the Granny Smith Apple. But apples are not in season yet so we just walked around the river and enjoyed an apple tart.
See you later,
Cheers, MaPa, Tom and Anja
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