Well we’ve been in Australia for 3 months and decided it’s time to venture down South from Perth here where we stay. We chose the most popular destination that’s within easy reach from here for a weekend trip which is the Margaret river wine region.
This area is well known for its white wines (apparently red as well, but not even nearly as good as Stellenbosch wines) Karri Forests (a type of indigenous tree) and great surfing destinations.
We departed early on Friday morning down towards Bunbury taking the scenic route all along the coast line.
Our first stop was at Busselton for breakfast. A coffee flask and some sarmis – but Hilde refused to make blou eiers and boerewors!!
Busselton has the longest wooden jetty in the Southern hemisphere. It stretches almost 2km into the sea and was built in 1853 for boats to offload their cargo, because the waters were too shallow.
From there we stopped at the world famous (apparently, maar wat weet ‘n boertjie nou?) surf spots of which the most impressive was Privelly beach. Here we witnessed a surfer snap his board in half when he came off a big wave.
We experienced firsthand some of Australia’s great marketing skills when we checked into the guest farm we booked - the website was much more flattering than the real thing, to say the least!!. Well we made the most of it – at least it was close to a beer brewery and all the wineries in the area! The kids loved it because they got to feed the animals every morning. Even Hilde got to wrestle with a hungry Scottish Highland cow!!
Anyway we weren’t here to feed chooks the whole weekend so we hit the road and frequented as many wineries as we could and also made a pit stop at the Margaret river chocolate factory. As I mentioned earlier the white wines in this area is very good. The red wines are also good, but contain a lot of tannin, so it needs to be matured. So it’s nice to collect these and keep them for a couple of years, but we don’t have the patience for that, so we stopped at the local bottle store and got some bottles form the Barossa valley in South Australia that’s good to go!!
The next day we took a drive down to Augusta. We decided to go off-road and take a route through the Karri forest while visiting some of the Caves on-route. I’ve never seen trees this tall. They must’ve been very old.
By now I was starting to get itchy, because I was hitting the rougher bush tracks and I’ve had this 4x4 for far too long and have not used it yet. As we edged deeper into the forest I became more and more like a child. I was finally in a place where I could get lost for days... I only have a City GPS so far and the little Tom Tom was starting to get terribly confused. I didn’t quite know where I was, so we just followed the tracks left behind by the previous party.
As you can see the off-road challenge was not much to speak off, but the beauty of this place was really worth the detour. The sheer size of these trees were breathtaking and when you stop for a second all you could hear was birds making a racquet up there some 50metres above our heads. I definitely want to come back to this place again in winter when it’s wet and muddy and a bit more of a challenge. And off-course next time hopefully with some more mates!!
Well we spent our evenings in South African style with a Boerie on the Braai bought form the SA shop here in Perth and some cold beers!! (Just without the fire though...)
Hopefully our next trip will be somewhere in the outback where we can make a descent fire and sleep underneath the stars!!
ja en die bees se horings lyk ook nie te sleg nie!!