Western Australia
Trip Start
Apr 16, 2007
1
67
88
Trip End
Jul 2008
Margaret River,
Australia
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
This town is 277km south of Perth and known for it's wine production. We took a train/ bus combo from Perth that took us through lots of tiny and very remote looking places before hitting MR. The trip took about 5 hours.
Seeing as this was the main wine region for WA, it would have been ridiculous to come here and not sample some of the delicious wines on offer so we took a tour - the Bushtucker Wine Tour. We spent the day visiting 4 vineyards and a beer factory to sample their produce. Lunch was included and as expected with the name of the tour it was Bush - Tucker...ie kangaroo, Ostrich meat, berries from the bush etc etc. Jim volunteered to sample a surprise that turned out to be witchetty grub- apparently it tastes mushroomy/ fishy! Interesting! Very brave though! Earnt himself a bottle of wine! (to go with the 3 we bought along on the wine tour! Living up to the 'Flashpacker's' term rather than 'Backpackers !!) By the time we got to the 4th winery, the pallet was shot!!
After the tour, you'd think we wouldn't want any more drink..yeah right..we headed off to the pub with new friends Katie (German), Reika (American) and Troy and Carolyn (Aussie's) we'd met and ended up there till closing time after which we carried on at Troy and Carolyn's place. They taught us a great new drinking game -'Circle of Death' - a card game with a million rules but very funny. (No doubt some of you back home will get a chance to sample it when we get back!!)
We stayed at the lovely InneTown Backpackers which we really enjoyed and made a few friends there too...usually over a couple of drinks....It is a wine region after all! But Mum's and Dad's don't fret...we also did some site seeing with several long walks in the Forests and national parks to keep ourselves healthy and loose some of the weight we were re-gaining after Thai and Indonesian food!
Spent a couple of days at the beach at Surf Point Resort, to watch and do some surfing. Had some lessons with an ex WA champ - Josh Palmerston but the weather meant there was a big swell so we had to contend with massive waves and the back wash of the waves too...not a chance...(for beginners)...managed too not drown though! But they say, if you can surf Margaret River, you can surf anywhere!
Hired a car here to take a trip down to our next destination.
