Heading back to Melbourne, via Perth.

Wednesday 15^th February, 2017.

A fairly full day of driving, non-eventful (as you'd hope) almost to the point of boring........ Avoided Busselton by using the Busselton By-pass road, which turned back into the Bussell Highway north of Busselton, and then got onto the South Western Highway south east of Bunbury, and drove on that to Armadale. From there we followed the same route we took on the way to Albany. Sort of. It would have been nice to take it a bit slower and have a few stops along the way but I was a bit worried about how the traffic would be in Perth mid-afternoon, turns out, I probably shouldn't have been. It was fine. 

I think the most exciting thing all day was seeing some camels in a paddock south of Armadale. Finally!! Ticked the last of our 'big game' off the list!

One advantage of a planned city is building the trainline in between the lanes of the highway. Very sensible. From Elizabeth Quay in Perth the train line sits snugly beween the lanes of the Mitchell Hwy which morphs into the Kwinana Freeway. They travel along together until the train line peels away near Kwinana.

Arrived back at the car hire place and the vehicle passed inspection.  I hope she gets a proper cleaning this time around, she deserves it. I've never heard of a Holden Malibu, but it was (mostly) a pleasure to drive, never skipped a beat, and wasn't too thirsty. 

Our bed tonight is at the Pensione Hotel on the corner of Pier and Murray Sts, with a very comfy bed, easy walking distance as it turns out to a few op shops but that mission is unsuccessful. We take a wander around the neighbourhood, planning where to have dinner. Rest stop with drinks at the bar attached to The Seasons Hotel, across the road from ours. We scratch Miss Maud's Restaurant as it's buffet style, and we really can't be bothered, so we end up at City Heart, and Indian restaurant with fairly decent food, and very close to the Pensione. 

We're very unimpressed that Virgin had changed our flight time from an early, but respectfully so 9.30 flight, to 7.30am. So, we're up early and out in time to watch the sunrise on the way to the airport. There has to be an upside! The cabbie is good for a chat, so the drive is dealt with quickly and we find breakfast at the airport. And then, we get breakfast on the plane.......... always the way, if we'd taken a chance and not eaten, we wouldn't have been fed on the plane! It's a 4 hour flight but with time zone changes, we arrive in Melbourne after 2pm. No lunch but not hungry after 2 breakfasts, so all good. Jump in a cab and head to Yarraville for a long weekend with family, before heading home to NSW.

Happy Valentine's Day

Tuesday 14^th February, 2017.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Our mission today, whether we choose to accept it or not, is to find a way to get our wine purchases home without taking out another mortgage on our home! I checked up on the web overnight to see what the 2 wineries were like in regard to cellar door prices and though Palmer’s is closer, all their wines are above what we usually pay, so it looks like a nice drive back to Yallingup and Cape Naturaliste Wines. I’d read on Trip Advisor that Lisa, who ran the cellar door was pretty amazing, so come opening time, 10.30, I gave her a call. We had a really good talk and she said she was surprised that a local winery didn’t know about the freighting of a mixed carton of wine. 

She said come on out and she’d get us sorted – our angel!! We went straight over, tried some of the wines, which were great, met the owner and heard (from Lisa) about how he won’t sell his wines to restaurants where he doesn’t like the owners, or the food, which I thought was fantastic. We found spots for 4 bottles of their wine and then bought another one to have with dinner.  "See you when I get home, my babies" I said. "Are you talking to your pets?" asked Lisa. "No. The wine!" I replied!!

Wine sorted and now it’s off to explore the famous Busselton Jetty. It’s 28 or 29 degrees and it turns out I’ve forgotten to bring my shoes to change into, and keeping with the train theme of this trip, we catch the little train out to the end, almost 2km from the shore. The shallow water goes out almost to the end. They were certainly keen back in the day to ship their produce out from this town. We grab a bite to eat at the Busselton Beach Shack, a little cafe next door to Equinox, a very handy bar where we quench our thirst after the Jetty visit. The Beach Shack has a big pump bottle of sunscreen, for the complimentary use of their patrons, a very nice touch I thought. Full points. Before we left home to come here, I had been trying to find out if it was possible to snorkel at the Jetty without going to the end and snorkelling at the Underwater Observatory. No luck finding any information, so we didn't take any gear with us. Turned out the water was very cold anyway so probably wouldn't have been much fun, BUT, I did see a sign that said you could snorkel as long as it wasn't within 10 metres (I think) of the UWO. I'm writing this several weeks later, so the memory is a bit hazy, but it is possible, so I'll know for next time!

There are still many little spots along the coast that we haven't had a chance to check out, so when we get back to Dunsborough, we drive out towards Cape Naturaliste and turn off to Bunker Bay first. We dropped in here on the first day, but it was miserable weather and a camper van was parked across the 3 spots where there would have been a view without getting out of the car. The weather was much better and there were more spaces to park. It's a very pretty bay and would have been good to spend more time there exploring the headland and maybe doing some snorkelling. We drove back out of Bunker Bay and turned in at Eagle Bay. What a pleasant surprise! It's a little community, a bit like The Bays near Woy Woy, but not as hilly. Very nice. Trevor says he would choose to live somewhere like this as opposed to Dunsborough and I agree, Dunsborough didn't do a lot for me. So we ducked in and out of little carparks all the way back to Dunsborough, along the Eagle Bay - Meelup Rd, through the Meelup Regional Park, some with no name signposted, others with lots of info. Point Piquet, Meelup Beach, Castle Rock and Gannet Rock, some with wide, white sandy beaches, others with more rock than sand, but all beautiful and beckoning.

The Thai place in town only does takeaway, so that's what we get and it goes down well with the bottle of wine from Cape Naturaliste Winery.