Last Big Night In Perth

   Saying 'goodbye' is always hard for me, even when I know I'll be back.  I just love my friends so much.  I've been incredibly fortunate to get to know some really outstanding folks here over the past 7 months - both for work and play.   I am definitely looking forward to returning to continue fostering these relationships.

   For my farewell dinner, we gathered at one of my favorite restaurants in Perth - Annalakshmi www.annalakshmi.com.au/ - a non-profit, vegetarian, volunteer-run joint.  The food and setting are both simply gorgeous.  I had a moment of near panic when my reservation for 20 had somehow vanished from the books, and a group of 40 was to arrive less than an hour later, but they were ever so gracious and found a spot for us.

  

   We did have to split up into two tables, but the views offered in both directions were gorgeous.

  

   It's going to be a long-cold winter missing these folks:

    

More Little Aussie Friends

I'm starting to loose track of how many Red Backs I've seen around here lately (see earlier post), but it's never a welcome site.  I caught a few more little friends on film around the garage - these are far more benign, but the spider is actually bigger than the gecko…

       

Happy 2009!

Happy New Year's!  OK, yes, it's admittedly late - the past several weeks have just been insanely hectic.  Rob and I rang in the new year at a vegetarian BBQ hosted by our good friends Brad and Amanda.  It was so nice to take a dip in their pool to cool off after the extremely hot week.  It was a fabulous crowd from all over the world.  We had fantastic food (prepared by Amanda), sparklers, way too much bubbly, poppers and everything else needed for a brilliantly good time.

Christmas In Margaret River - Day 6

   A lack of water and thirst for more adventure, coffee and interesting sights spurred us on to an early start to Augusta.  Our hope was to get to the information centre early enough that we might luck into a place to stay for the night.  Luck, it seems, is Rob's middle name…

   After coffee along the main street, I wandered off to explore the hamlet's public toilet offerings leaving Rob to his own devices.  While I was gone he picked up some items we thought we'd need for another night of camping then headed over to the info centre.  It seems the one room in the entire region, from Augusta to Bunbury, came open the minute Rob walked in the door.  I caught up with him just as he was booking us into a lovely little tea house in Cowramup, just 7 km north of Margaret River.

   With accommodations for our last night sorted, we had plenty of time to explore the southwestern-most corner of the state.  I was very excited at the prospect of seeing the confluence of the Southern and Indian Oceans - what a unique experience!  We headed down to the lighthouse and had heaps of fun goofing around with the camera and learning about the

 history of the region.

   

   It may not look like much in the photo, but just under my fingertips is a discernible break in water color and height.  The two oceans are different temperatures and salinities and therefore different densities - wicked cool.  The area around the lighthouse was really interesting to explore - there were three little houses, each with its own laundry shed (complete with wood stove) that originally housed the families of the three lighthouse keepers who shared the responsibility to keep watch every night of the year.  It's quite amazing to think about what life must have been like on that isolated weather-beaten outpost.

           

   This calcified natural spring pump was super cool - it used to transport water from the spring down to the little houses about 1 km down the coast.  I loved the juxtaposition of the super old cratonic gneisses, standing like sentries facing the sea, and the century old limestone that's formed on top.  Above right - Rob for scale.

 

          

   Yes, we are about 12.  And huge dorks…

   We spent the rest of the arvo driving through native forest, lunching on the beach, and laughing at novice surfers.   By the time we checked into our room we were both more than ready for a shower - it had been a very hot day and we were covered in the funk of two days camping and swimming in two different oceans - yum!  After cleaning up we tried in vain to find a place I'd been misinformed about then wandered into an organic winery to find our favorite collection of wines of the whole trip, prompting the purchase of an entire case.

   Luck was on our side again when we managed to wander into a restaurant without a booking and get a seat - going very early was a darn good idea!  We gorged ourselves on the seafood platter for two at The Waves and couldn't even come close to finishing the tower of food, although we gave it our best shot.

Christmas In Margaret River - Day 4 & 5

   Planning is not Rob's forte. Yes, I have learned in my many years of travel the joys of loosely organized days and that strict schedules are best limited to airlines. Yet, after hearing one seasoned Perthite after another say, "everyone goes to Margaret River for Christmas," my instincts told me we'd best have a good idea of what we wanted to do and where we were going to sleep.

   We decided weeks ago that we would enjoy the good life for a few days then rough it for the rest of the time to maximize what we could see and do without completely breaking the bank. Under duress (with me freaking out at him for not being the least bit involved in the planning process) Rob promised to take a good look at the map and come up with ideas to get us through a few days. I took him at his word and didn't give it another thought - something I might think twice about before doing again…

   Rob's 'plan' was to drive way south from M.R. to a very remote 4WD camp site on the Southern Ocean, spend a day dune surfing on 150 m dunes along the coast, then see where our whims took us from there. This could have worked if we had 

          1. left M.R. before noon, 

          2. had it not been raining, 

          3. had the road marked 'Seasonal Access Only' not been closed, 

          4. had the 50 km detour not forced us to turn around when that road became impassable,           and 5. if we had queried a local or two about what we might actually find down there. 

I had a 'bad feeling' about the whole situation when he showed me where we were headed on the map, but kept my dubious notions to myself. Well, at least until we had to turn around on the impassable 4WD track after 3 p.m. in the middle of BFE with no place to stay and a whole day completely wasted driving back and forth trying to get to an inaccessible camp site, then I kinda lost it.

   The new 'plan' was quickly set into action - drive another 50 km north to an area with three neighboring campsites and try our luck on the busiest camping weekend of the year. This time we were a little more fortunate. We pulled into a cleared area about 5 km off the main road down a narrow 4WD track and set up camp. The area was inhabited by a rather large group of locals who had settled in for a week of 'camping' complete with all the necessities - dirt bikes, generators, music, booze, canoes, dogs, etc. They were pretty nice and didn't mind us tromping through their site to go play in the river, but damn they were noisy.

   *          *           *              *              *               *               *               

   Having learned our lesson about the paucity of camp sites the day before, we left our camp intact for the next day. A low fuel gauge forced us to drive about 50 km north east to Nanup for fuel and coffee (after a terrible night's sleep I wasn't doing anything without my own fuel). We were quite pleased at Nanup's offerings (including an organic cafe with a multitude of gluten free offerings), and decided to wait out the heat of the day taking in the local nature walks in the woods and lunching in town.

   Feeling sated and having stretched the legs, we decided to give the dues another go. Rob was quite convinced we could get to them without issue and that we'd be spending the afternoon dune surfing down to the water's edge. Again I was quite skeptical about how flawlessly this 'plan' would be pulled off, but decided to be a good sport and play along. Again, there were a few little problems: 

          1. there were no actual beach access points for a few hundred km between the campsite we were unable to reach and the town of Agusta, 

          2. even the tiniest 4WD track on the map piddled out a few km from the water, 

          and 3. Rob's little machine doesn't really have the guts to traverse the burliest tracks. And, again, we didn't bother to get some beta from locals on what we might actually encounter down there.

   So, we drove and drove and drove along miles of fenced off farm land, with me getting progressively more frustrated and convinced that there was no way this was ever going to pan out, forcing Rob to prove me wrong. We finally found an ungated track heading toward the water and drove down it as far as we could. Rob ran up the sandy hill ahead of us and proclaimed that the beach was just a simple 2 km walk away. Boy, I wish I could have his

 unflagging optimism.

    The 4WD track quickly disintegrated into a mere 'roo trail and finally into nothing more than an overgrown fence line.  The threat of snakebites or twisted ankles was very real, but we pushed on, determined to make it to the water after going so far.  After bushwhacking for about 45 minutes, we finally broke free to less vegetated dunes and then on to the beach.

    Rob was quite disappointed in his dunes, but I was completely thrilled to jump into yet another of the world's oceans…  

Unfortunately, the rapidly dwindling lifespan of my camera battery meant we weren't able to perfect any jump 

shots, which are especially

 difficult to execute in the surf.

     

   After a few minutes of splashing about in our bathers, we realized we were the only people around for miles and decided to go starkers (he, he…)

   All's well that ends well, and it turned out to be a pretty good day, even if the last few gallons of our drinking water did spill down into the car…

Christmas In Margaret River - Day 3

   No trip to wine country would be complete without a wine tour.  When planning the trip, Rob was quite skeptical about paying someone to drive us around to various wineries and wanted to go the self-guided route.  I thought this posed two problems: 1) we knew nothing about the region or which wineries would be most interesting to visit, and 2) someone has to stay sober enough to drive.  My Lonely Planet recommended Bush Tucker wine tours as an excellent way to taste some real gems, have a great day learning more about wine and the region while meeting interesting people AND have an Aussie bush lunch.  I thought this sounded perfect and thanks to my wonderful mum, didn't cost us a thing.

                                                           

   Our intrepid guide for the day, Silvano, was a total hoot.  From the moment we boarded the bus, he was so engaging and prodded us into mixing with the others on the tour.  We had a great 'team' for our day of 'hard work', as Silvano repeatedly referred to wine tasting, with six 20-something to 30-something couples from France, New Zealand, Australia, and (of course) Alaska.  Many in our group had recently moved to Perth and it was the first time to Margaret River for all.

   Xanadu was our first destination and the largest winery we visited all day.  Silvano started us out with a lively introduction to wine tasting to help our largely novice wine-taster group get the most out of the experience.  For all the posh atmosphere and award-winning wine we sampled, I didn't find anything I particularly loved, but Rob grabbed a few bottles he was fond of.

         

I loved this metal wall art at Xanadu (left); Silvano patiently giving us instructions (right)

   From Xanadu we trekked back up through M.R. to Adinfern Estates where we were treated to some remarkably excellent wines from such a tiny family operation.  The pace of tasting was a little more relaxed as this was also our lunch stop, so we had more time to chat with others in the group and discuss each wine a little more.  Rob and I quickly befriended Ruth and Raphael, a couple close to our age (and height for Ruth and me!) who recently relocated to Perth, and shared a bottle of Adinfern CabSav over lunch.

   At lunch we discovered, much to my chagrin, that I had been a bad, bad blogger and forgot to charge my camera battery before the trip (the horror, the horror!).  I also failed to pack the charger, meaning limited photo documentation for the rest of the trip :(  Which is a crying shame considering lunch itself was a work of art, with beautifully displayed, delectible bush foods.  Rob and I were also fortunate to get to try the witchetty grub (granted there wasn't a lot of competition for the honor).

 

I "borrowed" this shot from www.expedition360.com

   In the most jovial of moods after an excellent lunch and plenty of wine, we headed off to my favorite stop of the day - the Margaret River Chocolate Co.  I won't even go into just how much chocolate I bought here…  Then we were off to Knotting Hill Estates, the site of Julia Roberts' very private wedding earlier this year.  By this point we'd tasted ~20 wines and I was a bit sideways, so I opted to spit, which I still find disgraceful even if it is condoned.  Of course, I wasn't all that into their wines anyway.

   The last winery of the day was Tassel Park Wines, set on an absolutely stunning estate.  Mr. Tassel himself served us ample 'tastes' of his delectable wines and did a hefty round of sales through our group.  His was the first M.R. Shraz I truly enjoyed, so I simply had to take one home.  Our final tasting with him was quite out of place in the sultry heat of the afternoon, but aroused in me the one true Christmassy feeling I've had this year - mulled wine, mmmm… I drank Rob's too.

   By the time we made it to the brewery, our final point of interest, I wasn't feeling so swell.  We'd been drinking for five hours and it was quite hot, so I opted out of beer tasting.  All in all it was a most excellent day, capped of with a fantastic dinner we shared with Ruth and Raphael at the Arc of Iris restaurant in M.R.