Margaret River

Wednesday, May 25

Carl and I woke up early to get on the road. Karen decided to stay in Perth for a couple days to check a few more things off her list.

It was about a 2.5 hour drive south, down to Margaret River. The road was paved and nice the whole way yet with the red dirt and giant eucalyptus groves on either side, we definitely felt like we were driving into the bush.

We got to our hotel and parked the car with enough time to walk down the main street for a couple blocks before meeting our Cheers tour van. The van pulled up to the hotel parking lot and a huge man (Chris, Hagrid’s beardless brother) got out from behind the driver’s seat to slide open the van door and welcome us on board. The van was full except for two single seats next to the door, where we placed ourselves. Chris explained that everyone else on board was doing the full day tour which had started at 9:45am whereas we had signed up for the half day tour.

We looked around at the other passengers. All were Australian. There was a younger pair of women and four older women (all retired nurses) from Perth, and an older couple from Queensland. They had already been to two wineries that morning and they all were being very friendly and talkative.

On our way to the first scheduled stop Chris made an impromptu stop at a brewery. Colonial brewing happened to be the same brewery that makes the yummy pale ales that we’d been devouring out of Martin’s fridge. Chris told us we only had 10 minutes but we decided to order a beer quickly. We both got IPAs and mistakenly ordered a pint size, which is somehow larger than an American pint. An American pint is 16fl oz or 473ml but in Australia a pint is 570ml. Turns out Australians have several specific beer sizes including Schooner (425ml), Middy (285ml) and Jug (1,140ml). We didn’t know this at the time, but have since studied this terminology.

As we drank our large beers quickly, we looked around the brewery grounds and admired the green rolling hills buffeted by eucalyptus and other, wild looking plants.

Next up was our first winery, Jarvis Estate. Carl and I had decided to go with a wine tour (rather than winging it on our own) because we genuinely want to learn more about wine so that we will be allowed to live in California again. But perhaps because everyone else on the tour was already sauced, the wine pourer didn’t mess around and just poured several wines in quick succession, telling us to read the tasting notes ourselves. The chilled rosé ended up being our favorite, because…duh.

She did give us a glimpse into the winery process -and we got to pet the nicest, softest winery dog!- as we went behind the scenes to sample port out of a barrel.

Our next stop was Cowaramup Brewing Company, in the neighboring town, Cowaramup. As we drove there Chris explained that the word Cowaramup is from an aboriginal language. “Up” on the end of any word means “from here” and Cowara is a purple-crowned lorikeet. So the place means that there is a beautiful bird from here. Chris showed us a building that has two Cowara birds painted on it. Of course, modern Australians saw the word Cowaramup and decided to nickname the place ‘Cow’ and install hundreds of cow statues throughout the town.

At the Cowaramup brewery, the full-dayers were given a full lunch while Carl and I got beers and wandered around the grounds. It was a beautiful sunny day, not unlike a beautiful sunny day in Napa, CA. The only major difference was a strange looking bird every once in a while and a fear of getting too close to any pond in case it had crocs in it.

As we drove, Chris explained some of the history of the place. As Perth was being developed, lumber was needed. So the government sold tracts of land in Margaret River to pioneers with the deal that if the homesteaders could chop down all the trees they could sell the lumber to the government and keep the remaining farmland. The soil here isn’t great, so many farms ended up raising cattle or sheep. These days, farms are being bought up and converted to wineries. Chris had a comment that many of the farms are a standard 80 acres in size which he noted “isn’t a lot of land when you’re an Australian”.

Next we went to a cheese factory and then a chocolate factory for free samples. One of the older, retired nurses befriended us and bought us each a Chocolate Quokka.

On the way to the next place we were slowed down by a hoard of sheep that had gotten out of their paddock and were crossing the road. On the radio the song, “Stuck in the Middle with You” by Stealer’s Wheel was playing and our driver Chris started singing “Stuck in the middle with ewe”. The comedic timing was phenomenal.

Next stop was Bettenay’s Winery and Nougat Company. At this late stage in the game, many people were sitting out of the tasting and just listening to the chatty banter. Our new retired nurse friend decided she wanted to work at Bettenay’s and was genuinely asking the wine pourer for a job application. The poor wine pourer was a good sport, and she let us interrupt her while she kindly explained the wines. We were surprised we liked the whites more than the reds. We also got to try some nougat.

The last stop was The Grove Brewery and Distillery. Before we arrived Chris warned us that we might get offended by the owner, who was known to tell lewd, offensive jokes. As if to warm us up, Chris told us a few off color jokes of his own. I’ll spare our blog audience from having to read these, but if you’re really curious ask me about beef stroganoff later.

At the grove we were served very sweet liquors like coffee liquor. We took a sip (and found it overwhelmingly sweet) but then they added chocolate and fresh cream to it and it tasted sooo good. The owner did offend some, but we had prepared for it so it didn’t seem as shocking. We tried some beers too, that were ok. By that time in the day we were too drunk anyways to be doing thoughtful tastings.

As we left the bar, our retired nurse friend pointed to a sign on a tree that said ‘watch out for drop bears’. Carl told her that the American embassy had issued an official warning about drop bears and she looked at us in surprise and said “really?!” (No, not really, but google it).

Chris then drove us back to our hotel. We knew we needed to eat, but the all day drinking had made us lazy and indecisive. We walked to a nearby restaurant called Burger Baby. The place had an old timey aquarium vibe to it and served craft beers and craft burgers. We split a burger and somehow managed to drink a couple more beers. The first beer we got was a spicy and juicy peach and habanero IPA. It was pretty spicy!

We stumbled back to our hotel. We stayed at the Bridgefield Guest House, a historic hotel that was built in 1889 and claims to be the first guest house along Margaret River. Our room seemed to be an add on to where the covered porch used to be. The common area had wood paneled walls covered in collected knick knacks. There were several large couches and a big tv on the wall (and none in the room) so we made ourselves at home. We watched some Australian version of jeopardy before heading to bed.

Thursday, May 26

We woke up fairly early to get on the road. Our first stop was to Hamelin Bay to try to see some stingrays. We’d heard that there were tons of rays here and that it would be possible to see them from the pier. Well, the tide seemed far out and the pier seemed demolished so we couldn’t see any rays. But, the beach was still gorgeous. We walked up and down a bit before getting back into the car.

Feeling a bit nauseous from the prior day’s activities, we weren’t in a hurry to get breakfast. We let fate take over. Indeed, in the town just before our next location we discovered a cafe that sold meat pies. When I visited New Zealand I had been a vegetarian and had missed out on meat pies. On this trip I couldn’t wait to try one. I got a beef and cheese pie and Carl got some sort of minced meat with carrot. Both were good and proved a perfect hangover snack.

Shortly after we arrived to Gloucester National Park. The main attraction here is the Gloucester Tree which was used as a fire lookout in the 1950s. At some point, rebar pegs had been drilled into the tree, in a clockwise direction up and around it.

These pegs are still there and visitors can climb them, all 53 meters to the top. There’s a net on the right to keep you from falling to the side. There’s also two layers of pegs so in case you slip and fall off backward, pegs might catch you. If you slip and fall forward, through the pegs, you die.

I thought Carl would at least be a little scared but he scaled right up like an eager, energetic koala. I, on the other hand, was realizing with physical clarity that I was hungover and shaking. Some deep, measured breathing, and out loud self motivation, and I was pulling myself up, one rung at a time.

Every once in a while Carl would shout down to ask whether I was ok and I’d realize how high up I was and get scared again, flummoxed that he wasn’t having any issues with it. Finally we reached the top platform and looked around at the surrounding canopy. We were really up there!

I asked Carl to go down first, to scare away anyone that might be thinking about climbing up while I wanted to climb down. It was bad enough climbing up, imagine trying to go down while someone else is trying to come up at the same time! Luckily for us, there were very few people in the park. The only other car was a tour van full of an elderly group that had a picnic at the base of the tree. They had no interest in climbing but were eager to hang around on the ground and tell us how brave we were and ask ‘so waddya see up there?’

We had a nice 1.5hr drive to the next stop, Valley of the Giants Treetop Walk to see the Tingle and Karri trees. Tingle tress are big, old (~400 years old), reddish eucalyptus trees that are endemic to Western Australia. They have sensitive root systems so the best way to bring tourists near them is via an elevated, metal walking path that winds through the trees, 40 meters (130 ft) in the air. It was a pricey admission fee but we were nearly the only people there. Walking amongst the crown of trees, we were able to appreciate how tall and old the forest is. Later, as we came out of the bathroom, we heard a kookaburra laughing at us.

After the skyline walk we decided to do the ancient empire walk which winds along the forest floor around the hallowed out trunks of prehistoric trees. A lot of the tingle trees have trunks which have been hallowed out from pests or fire or both, with the rest of the tree living on around it. It was like the big redwood trails in CA where you can walk through trunks except these were all naturally formed.

Then it was time to get back in the car to begin the long journey home. After leaving the park the next several towns were all tree themed with restaurants like ‘tree view cafe’. We stopped at a gas station cafe to get some coffees and a snack before the 5 hour drive. They sold meat pies so we thought “why not?” and got two.

Unlike your typical gas station coffee, this place had a full espresso machine. We asked for coffees and the guy responded “what kind?” I shrugged and said “like an americano would be fine.” He looked at me like I was speaking another language. That’s when I remembered the Australian terminology for coffees (how could I have forgotten??) I asked for a flat white and a long black. Then he nodded in understanding.

Then I asked if he could fill up my water bottle with tap water. He looked at me with disgust and said, “you don’t want to drink the tap water here” and then got out his personal! water bottle from the fridge. He said the station’s tap water is treated and tastes horrible but he brings his own water – collected rain water – from his house. I tried to refuse his offer but he insisted.

So, refueled, we drove back to Perth. We admired the sunset from the car and after, ogled at so many stars as best we could while driving down the freeway.

Finally we reached Martin’s house at about 8pm. We hadn’t realized but Karen and Martin had been waiting for us to eat dinner. So Martin sneakily went out and got some curry chips – french fries with sides of curry and gravy – and some fried onions, and crab sticks. We ate and caught up on the past two days before heading off to bed.