We spent a
truly WONDERFUL 4 days in the Margaret River area. It was so lovely, and has
become our new favourite destination. And wine had nothing to do with our
reasons! When we left our home in Melbourne, Duncan unearthed a large quantity
of wine he had been hoarding. He called it ‘collecting’. Pfft! The bottom line is that only
about half of it was fit to drink, and the rest went down the drain. Literally.
Every time we went out somewhere in the last few weeks, we would take 3 bottles
with us, in the hope that at least one would be ok. It was quite disheartening
for poor Dunc and he has gone with my suggestions of paying a little more to
buy wine to drink right now. “Only buy what you will drink”. And since we currently have a case of his
favourite wine from Mashado under the seat I am sitting on, there was no need
to buy any more.
We stayed
at the Big Valley campground, another farm stay caravan park. They had HUGE
trees for the children to climb, and a pet lamb thanks to a frisky ram getting
into the ewes at the wrong time of year! ‘Mischief’ the lamb was adorable, though she
did bleat rather loudly every morning. I’m glad I wasn’t trying to sleep in under canvas!
The whole
of the Margaret River community is incredibly well set up for children. Every
winery, brewery, or other attraction has a playground, and they are all
beautifully designed and FUN to play on.
We explored
the entire area, from right down south at the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse (where
the two oceans meet) up to right up north of Margaret River. For once, we were
ALL entertained. Lexie and Angus have opposing interests, so usually she will
find something interesting while he is bored, and vice versa. We spent a day
popping in and out to all sorts of venues and it was an amazing day. We
overheard/had this conversation with the kids:
Lexie: What’s next?! (excited)
Sacha: Silk factory! (encouraging)
Angus: Oh. Silk? Booooring for me. (bored)
Lexie: No.
Silk is made by bugs, Angus! (encouraging)
Angus: Oh
cool! (excited)
Thanks to
Dunc’s new wine policy, we concentrated
on venues other than wineries, and went to an ice cream factory, cheese
factory, eagle heritage centre, nut processing facility, chocolate factory and
the silk place. And a brewery or two for Dunc. We can thoroughly recommend the
$10 pizza night at Colonial Brewing Company. Its every Friday night, and they
had a great guy singing and playing guitar the time we were there. As well as
what seemed like a hundred children playing on the playground.
On Mother’s Day Sunday, we had booked a Bushtucker Caves
and Canoe Tour. We paddled from the head of the Margaret River in a canoe and
got to eat all sorts of yummy plants and bush tucker including smoked
crocodile, kangaroo, bush tomatoes and limes, quondong, wattle seed bread and
witchetty grubs. And the children actually ate EVERYTHING they were given. So
proud of them. The guide also had crackers and cheese, and told us most kids
eat that only. Our kids can certainly eat!
After
lunch, we all explored a limestone cave and Duncan and Lexie actually crawled
through a teeny tiny tunnel for the complete experience. There was a canoe race
to the starting/finishing beach, the winner of which receives a bottle of wine.
Well, you’d think Duncan was starved of
alcohol! He spent TWO whole days revving the kids up, and the entire paddling
time trying to get them into some sort of form. The rest of the time he was
trying to avoid low flying paddles and splashes from uncoordinated children. So
you can imagine our chances of winning the race were not that good. Luckily our
guide was GREAT at sabotage and managed to sabotage us first, which meant we
could get a head start on the other two boats. We made great time but then
bottomed out at the shore. That wasn’t holding Dunc back from a bottle of wine. He was dirty enough from the
cave crawl – out he hopped into calf deep water and HAULED us up to get his
bottle. LOL.
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