We finally arrived in Margaret River towards the end of the day and checked into Riverview Holiday Park. The cabin was ok although a little bit pokey and there were one or two ants crawling about looking for food. After a quick BBQ (spoilt only by the cockney geezer hanging around the kitchen) we hit the hay.
Having driven all the way from Kalbarri in two days we decided that it would be an excellent idea to do more driving. So off we went to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse; the most southwesterly point of Australia. Not a huge amount to say about it; it's a lighthouse. It does however have the additional trivia of being the point that Matthew Flinders started mapping the Australian coastline back in 1800 and something (I lost the info sheet). As shown in the photo it was seriously threatening rain by this point in time so the obvious thing to do was hit the vineyards.
Our first point of call was the Leeuwin Estate. In sandals, shorts and a t-shirt I was starting to feel a little out of place as we drove in past the sculpture trail and gardens, and pretty much as I expected, once we went inside to do the good bit, i.e. tasting, the barman was what James May would call a wine snob; whilst we were greeted with a reluctant 'How are you, shall we start with the whites?' the middle aged couple next to us were getting a lecture on how French oaked chardonnay was better than English oaked (I don't know much about wine but I'm sure that can't be true). Still, we were there to do the tasting so we weren;t that bothered. To put it succintly, the wine was superb - the $35 'Art Series' Chardonnay in particular was a good quaffer.
The following day we took it easy; lunch at a restaurant then back onto the wine trail. It was on our way to the Vasse Felix Estate that I discovered why our rental company was reluctant to let us on unsealed roads, as 500m down a corrugated nightmare part of the bumper trim decided to part company with the car. This was after we had already had to pull over that morning as it was raining so hard I couldn't see the road. Fortunately a bull dog clip and some creative bending seemed to do the trick. Got to Vasse via a sealed road, drank wine. For a change we then decided to take in the Margaret River Chocolate Co. (free chocolate which was excellent), then Cowarumup Brewing for some truly excellent beer.
