What I realised today is that you can be in the most beautiful place but if its grey skies and torrential rain it still seems desolate and miserable!
Back to that later as I've got a couple days to fill you in on!
On Friday we went wine tasting in Margaret River with Bushtucker tours. Chris pretty much mapped the whole thing on Facebook so you probably already have an idea where we went but I'll tell the story anyway! We visited 3 lovely small wineries - Stella Bella, Adinfern and Cape Grace. Stella Bella is where they make Skuttlebutt Kate if you're reading this! The manager there was very surprised to hear that I'd drunk some in a restaurant in Brisbane - they seemed like a pretty small place! They all made some really nice wines and we did go back for a couple bottles to drink on our travels. We also had lunch at Adinfern, prepared by our driver it was a bit of a ploughmans' style lunch and very good. He also produced a Witchetty grub for someone to try! Chris and I didn't volunteer but one of the Australian guys on the tour did, which upset his daughter a bit! Both he and the guide said it tasted pretty good - he compared it to cream cheese!
In the afternoon we went to a brewery where Chris sampled some beers and I sampled the cider, as well as a chocolate factory and a dairy. We may have come away with some chocolate and cheese as well! It was a really good day, great wine and great food. Good day to be inside as well as it was mostly cloudy and drizzly.
On Saturday we explored the region a bit - visiting several caves and finishing up at the lighthouse. We went to Lake Cave, Mammoth Cave and Jewel Cave. All beautiful caves with some amazing formations, you'll have to wait for the photos as we don't have free wifi today! All involved a lot of stairs though and then we went down to the tip of the cape, to Leeuwin lighthouse. We did the tour there - another 176 steps up/down the lighthouse! It was very windy and looking quite grey out to sea beyond the lighthouse. While we were inside the guide said that there was a storm forecast later. It pretty much arrived as we walked out of the door at the bottom of the lighthouse! The coastline had disappeared and the rain was torrential! It was a bit of a walk back to the visitor centre and the car park and although we both had coats on we didn't have hoods and it didn't really matter because our jeans, shoes and hair/faces were soaking wet almost straight away! It was about half an hour soggy drive back to the guesthouse and our clothes/coats/shoes weren't even fully dry by the morning as the best we could do was leave them in the bathroom with the heater on.
By this morning there were blue skies again, we packed and headed out to Hamlin Bay (thanks for the recommendation Liz!). By the time we got there there were threatening skies out at sea again but managed to get a few photos with a bit of sun breaking through the crowds. It was a deserted little beach with a collapsed jetty. It would be a beautiful holiday spot in the summer, I had a quick wander on the beach but made it back to the car as it started spitting with rain. Not much longer after that the heavens opened and it rained heavily for the rest of the day! We drove up the coast but it was too wet to see much of the coastline and then we drove inland, past Perth and up to York where we're staying tonight. It wasn't very good driving conditions - heavy rain and bad visibility but Chris got us here in one piece! Off to bed soon as we've got an early start tomorrow, just hope the rain holds off for a special trip in the morning!
