Sunday 7 April 2013

Day #14 Hamelin Bay to Busselton


Phew!  The floor is swept (& washed) and a load of laundry (it's always one load) is on so … finally … I have time to update … on our drive to Busselton (guaranteed ensuite site!) through the Margaret River tourist area - an area known for it's wineries amongst other things. 

It wasn't a good start to the day - last thing that is done before we leave a site is to load the bicycles on the back of the van and that's when we realized that one of the pins used to secure the bike rack to the van was lost.  Errrr… that would be MY fault because I removed the bikes last time and I (thought I) installed the pins back securely onto the tow bar.  So the thing I hate most about this trip is having the bikes bounce up and down at the back as we drive along and now, they bounce just that bit more up and a bit more down. Bummer and I can't even blame anybody else!!

I had to drive because of Joseph's sprained wrist and I missed the turnoff to the main highway so the day wasn't looking good.  Then as the line of cars behind me started to pile up (because I won't drive fast enough for them - 80 vs. 110) I decided to pull into the next road and let them pass.  The next road happened to be into a gallery/cafe/shop - Joseph thinks that was awfully coincidental given that we were very much out in the middle of nowhere - but it must have been my built-in radar!. 

 Boranup Gallery http://www.boranupgallery.com/ is nestled out of the way, in amongst the trees, the shop/gallery had the most amazing collection of hand-made furniture, glass pieces, wood carvings, jewellery iron statues and paintings that we had ever seen.  I don't think there was an ugly piece in the (very large) building (that happened to be quite beautiful as well).  I wanted to buy the vase with the robbins attached, I wanted to buy the surf scene on the corrugated iron, I wanted to buy the carved kookaburras - no the carved cockatoos - no  … eek!  I wanted to everything!  The iron "blackboy" (it's a plant and I don't know the real name) garden statue that I liked was $4000 so I didn't really WANT to buy that one.  The most amazing wooden dining tables you have ever seen.  It just blew our minds!

So we left there - now in a good mood! and decided that we would stop at a few wineries so long as they were on the main road (pathetic but I was driving). Not far and there was one on the right - they have superior wines the map said.  It was called Watershed http://www.watershedwines.com.au/ and it turned out to have some quite nice wines in a beautiful building with beautiful scenery. So we sat outside on the patio (the only ones outside - too windy?) and made lunch out of bread & olive oil and a wonderful salad they called "leafs,nuts & seeds" and a panacotta (I know - I promised but this was only $4.00!!) and two glasses of wine and it only cost $31.00!! Now we were in a very good mood so we bought two bottles of wine as we left.  

OK - this is good!  We drove through the town of Margaret River that seemed very nice and stopped at the next winery on the main road this time on the left -  Adinfern http://www.adinfern.com. It was much smaller and more simple than the last and turned out that it used to be a sheep farm and then 17 years ago the wife sent the husband away to viticulture school to learn all about wine et voilà now it's a winery.  A good move they declared but hard work.  They had a special $100/doz wines - so we bought that!  - and decided we had done enough wineries!  Pathetic  - but I was driving.

One more stop along the road - organic vegetables! We chose our vegies and then waited and waited for someone to serve us and finally noticed the book, scales and calculator and realized it was serve yourself and pay using the honour system… so we did! They said they had organic gala apples but we didn't see them- we wanted to judge them with our new-found apple knowledge :(

NO PHOTOS _ MY PHONE WAS DEAD!!

So we are in a campsite with an ensuite in Busselton although quite away out of the town and we are here for a few days while we assess Joseph's wrist  … I think tomorrow I know where we will be going tomorrowl!http://www.boranupgallery.com/

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