Thursday, Oct 30 - exploring Margaret River area

Pics: Bushlands woodlands, Surfin' Prevelly, Lunch at Vasse Felix, Buffeted by a gale at Sugarloaf

OMG - Sun! Well, really partly cloudy, but it was so nice to see some blue sky that we were thrilled after about ten days of drizzle and rain. Bob and I took a pre-breakfast walk around the Bushlands property and encountered a kangaroo family of a mother ‘roo with one joey looking out of her pouch and an older one outside grazing. We walked some of the trails on this 45 acre property of old Karri Eucalyptus, saw orchids, beautiful ferns, returned back for breakfast and then headed out.

We dropped Mark at Mammoth Cave, one of a series of caves in this area, and we headed to the coast. We drove to Prevelly Park, a world champion surfing site, and watched surfers riding enormous waves and walked along the beach for an hour.

We picked up Mark and headed north to the town of Dunsborough to arrange a pelagic tour for the boys tomorrow. Feeling peckish, we looked for a vineyard with a café (there are over 100 on this section of coast) and drove into Vasse Felix, one of the first wineries in the area. Beautiful grounds and a very fancy restaurant! We ordered three “starters”, since we didn’t want to stuff ourselves, and had one of the best lunches ever (right up there with Paarl, Hil).

I had shaved yellowtail king fish, with green ginger sorbet, wakame and shiso salad, Bob had seared scallops with iberico jamon, sw. corn pudding and truffled air(!) and Mark had a great green salad (not a easy thing to come by in OZ). We shared it all around and had a fabulous lunch with a glass of champagne.

The rest of the day didn’t go quite as well: we reached the little town of Dunsborough and found the oceanfront road where the charter is supposed to leave tomorrow and drove back and forth spotting little boat launches and exquisite beaches with stripping of turquoise and dark blue in the ocean - very tropical - and finally saw the boat, Naturaliste Charters, anchored off shore but no office. Finally after asking a lot of people we found a tourist office in town and made a booking for tomorrow morning. It was four already, but we drove to Cape Naturaliste and Sugarloaf Rock where the Red-tailed Tropicbird is supposed to nest. The road was closed so we had to park some ways away and hike a mile to the Rock overlook. Lovely vegetation, but blowing a gale by the time we got there….and the birds, sensibly, were elsewhere.

Headed home, stopping in the very cute touristy town of Margaret River and picking up a box of fried chicken and chips at Chooks, the local KFC. Cuba Libres, chicken and bed!