Mo

A Dutch Twist (afternoon of 30th July)

This monument down by the wharf commemorates Mr O'Connor who set out the township, and for those early days he seems to have done a splendid job.

We  visited the Ship wreck museum. This was fascinating as they had an extensive display of the wreck of the Batavia (from the Netherlands)which stranded on a reef in  1629. I can see why Australia was nearly called New Holland with several Dutch vessels nearly making a settlement nearly a century before the British.

Reconstructed hull

A variety of hand made nails

A pair of scissors calcified from being on the reef.

Model of the type of ship that the Batavia was.

And why did it sink? Probably because this stone archway stored in pieces was in the hold so that when they did start a settlement they would have a grand entranceway!!! Incredible!!

Then we walked to the Round House which was a sentry and a prison. Curved rooms which echoed Andrea and Todd's place in a way.

The bells to relay the time and events of the day.

Freo - 30th July 2016

Complimentary breakfast at the hotel, then onto the Fremantle Explorer for a cruise to Fremantle for the day. Warm and only a little cloudy.

The trip up the Swan River to Freo takes about 1 1/4 hours and we passed some spectacular real estate.

Units 3.3million. Boats extra.

On  landing we caught the Blue CAT which is a free bus service.

Waiting for the bus.

Fantastically restored  old buildings.

We got off at the Fremantle Yacht club expecting to see some vestige of the America Cup venue - but we hit a brick wall - all very exclusive!

Pretty succulents

This would have been the approximate yacht racing area.

A photo opportunity beckons

Back to Perth - 29th July 2016

Packed up and headed to Busselton  - without the GPS on. Busselton has an extremely long jetty,but the wind was howling and it was starting to rain so we didn't venture along it. Even a photo was just a grey blur. We had tea and coffee in town (Yuk) and then set the GPS for a macadamia farm north of Mandurah. Unfortunately it was just a paddock of trees, a shack of a house and a large noisy dog. (but such a lovely website!) We stopped only long enough for Duncan to relieve himself! Fortunately the GPS got us back on track with ease. Our hotel in Perth was in the midst of road works which meant a trip around the block. The hotel (Good Earth)  is dated but well laid out. 

Duncan returns the car and we walk to the Southern Star Vietnamese Restaurant.

Sunset view from our window

Good fresh tucker for tea.

Lights of Perth - the Bell tower.

Carbunup, Yallingup, Cowaramup

All these Aboriginal names - and yet I haven't seen one Aborigine in this district!

As we left Lake Cave it was raining very hard, so we missed the Mammoth cave., and headed North. The rain soon eased and we took a side trip to Ellenbrook to look at a surf break - Umbies - but it is a bit confronting when there is a memorial to Boydy taken and eaten by a shark just a few years ago.

The beach was deserted

Small snails on the beachfront succulents.

We travelled further north to Yallingup where the statue proclaims this as the "Home of Surfing in WA" I saw a young mum looking after two babies as we had lunch there. Later the other mum appeared out of the surf, "Your turn tomorrow" I laughed, but she replied "No I had first surf today and I'll be second tomorrow."

We drove through to Dunsborough and along the beachfront where each denomination - Seventh Day Adventist, Anglican, Brethren, Uniting (Methodist and Presbyterian) and Baptist had all been gifted campsite areas bordering the sea.

Then through Vasse, Carbunup to 3Oceans winery where we gleaned a lot of useful information as well as trying some good wines.

We stopped at Cowaramup to take some photos as the village has been invaded by cow models!

Steering the steer.

Can't this cow read??

It was a short drive off the beaten track to Colonial Brewery for a beer tasting.

Even the Colonial brewery had a cow

After a short respite at the motel we headed of to Swings. It had tapas, but all five that we ordered arrived at once which was very unsatisfactory. They didn't even fit on our table!.

Lake Cave 28th July 2016

Today we set off on a short drive to the south west to Lake Cave. We were the only two on the 10.30am tour and so had a great experience with our guide Rusty. The cave is 62m underground so there were a lot of steps to get down there!

Looks a bit like a dinosaur skull

It was pitch black - yes he turned out all the lights, until I inquired - "Are you still there Rusty??" With the lake so close you wouldn't want to fall in. The most wonderful was the stalactite  and stalagmites on a platform which had had the sand beneath washed away. It appeared to be levitating above the lake. (Picture above)

Straws forming

These are called shawls

A ghostly figure holds a block of calcium carbonate

Rusty put on a "Light Show"

Beautiful reflections

More reflections in the lake

The now extinct short faced kangaroo  is honoured with a statue

Whew! 640 steps there and back.

Kangaroo Count Dead:8 Live 1

This morning we headed for Augusta -just a small seaside town - and then on to the southern most point of Western Australia at the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse. We wondered about doing "the tour" of it but the place is swarming with Asian tourists so we declined and went for a cuppa at Augusta.

We have seen cow models at Cowaraup and witch models at Witchcliffe, but thankfully no models at Dead Point, although it proudly announced "Wheelchair Access".

Our next destination was Pemberton. We had to pass through Blackwood National Park - very scuffy firedamaged forest, unrelentingly the same for KMs - which is why I guess we took to counting dead kangaroos

Pemberton was another small quite old fashioned town. We enjoyed our lunch here including olives and oranges thatAndrea gave us and cheese from the factory we visited yesterday.

We drove through more National Park with some magnificent stands of Karri (a eucalypt - not a kauri). We slewed off the main road to go to the Diamond tree which is one of the karri trees in the district that you can climb. Dont know what you would do if you met someone coming down as you were going up! Duncan didn't go too far up. It didn't look very "Health and Safety Approved"!

The highlight of today's travelling was finding Truffle Hill Farm and Winery. We enjoyed a truffle fasting platter and some very elegant wines in a tasting flight. Truffle is a condiment, not a food so we had it in mustard, aioli, oil and honey

Again GPS let us down, but with a stroke of luck we spotted a brand new road saying 36km  to Margaret River - a very, very straight road. It must have saved us 100km of travel!

That night we went to Miki's Tempura Kitchen at 6.10pm precisely.  We chose the degustation meal with wine matching. Unfortunately the wines were of very poor quality. The initial dishes were very exciting but then we had a very long wait and received a very poor dish. 

Mizuna, cabbage salad and tobiko salad

Aonori crust persimmon cream cheese, date shropshire blue

Hiramasa kingfish zuke

Top Drop Tours 26th July 2016

We were picked up by Kerry of Top Drop tours for a day of wine tasting and more. On our minivan tour were Graeme,a retired principal from Brisbane, Robert ( a retired shoe salesman) and his wife Elizabeth (got tiddly at the first stop) from Byron Bay who had come over on the Indian Pacific train to Perth and then bussed down, and two young couples from Perth Sam and Zoe, and Michael and Corina.

The first stop was Burch Family Wines which included the Mad Fish commercial range, the Howard Park prestige range and a further range made in collaboration with a french winemaker.

Our second stop was just the opposite - a very small vineyard of 7Ha - we had 8Ha, but some interesting wines at Cape Grace.

Providore had wines to taste as well as a range of pickles, relishes oils and sweet treats. There were also packs for baking with all ingredients included.

Clairault Steicker Wines was our lunch stop - excellent beef cheeks baked in red wine and puffy gnocchi. We also visited a cheese factory and finished up at Juniper which had some very fine wines.

After dropping everyone home we confessed to Kerry that we had been grapegrowers for 20 years, and felt that she had shown us a really good snapshot of Margaret River wines.

We went to a BYO Thai restaurant for dinner.