Tuesday 14th 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.
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