After leaving Auckland, I headed to Perth to see and spend time with Mrs. Emma and her wonderful boyfriend Sam.
Day 4 was spent traveling because of a lovely 6 and a half hour layover in Melbourne airport (which is the perfect amount of time to not be able to get out and see the city- because of where the airport is located). San was nice enough to pick me up from the airport and Emma and her other friend who was visiting had made a nice home-cooked dinner for all of us.
Day 5 was spent with Emma and Rosie wondering around Fremantle, trying multiple cafes, looking through the shops and (of course) drinking wine - warming up for the weekend. The day ended with dinner and more wine over multiple games, drinking and otherwise.
Friday we packed up a cramped car with 7 people, all of our stuff, and headed down south for a weekend in the wine country Margaret River. The drive was long (3 hours) but it went quickly with a nap in the car. We stopped at 4 wineries on the way to our lovely shack that we were staying at. We managed to fit 7 people into a shack made for 6. At the sturdy winery we stopped at, we all chipped in and bought a case of wine for the evening and spent the rest of the night drinking all of it before switching to rum.
Saturday was a very slow start but we had made the commitment to spend the weekend drinking wine and that was what we were going to do. We had breakfast at a wonderful beachside cafe that had gorgeous views of the ocean and amazing food. Superhero Sam was our 'skipped' or DD for the day and had to put up with a lot of embarrassing and wtf moments so he gets extra props! I would have driven, but wrong side of the car and road would not have been a good combo!! We stopped at 8 wineries, 2 chocolate tasting companies, 1 cheese making farm, and our lunch stop was an olive oil/tapenade/hand lotion/soap place (lots of free samples!). We bought yet another case of wine and demolished that as well that night. We played multiple games, both of the drinking and non-drinking varieties and had too much drunken fun together.
Sunday was an early start to check out of the shack and get on the road (kind of). We packed up the car and went to the same place as the day before for breakfast. We drove to a popular surfing spot and watched the surfers and admired the view before heading off to Australia's largest hedge maze. We split up into 2 groups the 'kids' and the 'adults' and we: 'the resposible best adults ever' won! We were all so tired afterwards that we went to a coffee tasting place, Yahava KoffeeWorks, for a needed pick-me-up. The last thing in Margaret River we did was play a round of mini-goanywhere there were some amazing shots that I have never seen before! Sam drove us back to Fremantle (YAY Sam!!) and had Dominos for dinner before heading to the airport.
I haven't laughed that hard and smiled that much in a very long time and after that weekend Im starting to feel back to normal a little. I needed that more than I knew. I'm exhausted and my liver is seriously trying to kill me right now, but it was worth it. Some highlights include (but arent limited to): seeing Will!, all of the Chardonnays, the multiple games we played, and the song that was made up about the weekend (which I think we all made a blood pact to take to the grave, but im not 100% sure- we were all REALLY drunk).
