Margaret River 4

Happy Anzac Day!

At Brewfarm

It rained all night and was still raining when we woke up, which was too bad because we are finally caught up on sleep from the cruise (late dinner+early sunrise=not enough sleep!) and would have had time for a nice walk up the river. The good news was that we still had half our breakfasts from yesterday so we didn’t have to go out in the rain to get fed. We had a quiet morning of packing and relaxing, then checked out and hopped in the van at 10:45. Our destination was Ngilgi Cave, about a 40 minute drive up to the northwestern tip of WA. Daniel hadn’t made a reservation, and the combination of public holiday (extra 15% gratuity added to your bill) so none of the wineries could open until noon AND it was raining so there was nothing to do AND the giant surf competition was cancelled the tour was fully booked by the time we got there. The ranger said it had never been that crowded in the 16 years he’d worked there. So that was a little disappointing. No wineries were open but there are a couple of places that do honey so we headed to one of them… also closed. Desperate, we stopped at the Margaret River Dairy Company who were advertising their cheese tasting, which turned out to be 3 bits of cheese on a stick. They had a little gift shop, though, so we wandered through it a bit and I found some mugs I just loved. No room in the suitcase though. We had driven through the town of Cowaramup on the way to the cave and noticed that in addition to cow statues everywhere they also had a chocolate store, so we stopped there and got some hot chocolate (and a flat white for Daniel) which made us all happier. Sadly it was raining hard otherwise we would have walked around the town center taking pictures with all the cows.

At Vasse Felix

It was now just before noon and the day was about to get much better; we made a stop at Stormflower which is one of Daniel and Lauren’s favorites. We only had about 25 minutes there because we had an appointment at 12:30, but there were only 7 wines and we zoomed right through it. They were all really good, especially the sparkling chenin and the pet-nat, which was funky in all the right ways. Overall it was our favorite of the small wineries. Our next stop couldn’t have been more different. Cullen is one of the 3 earliest wineries (along with Mosswood and Vasse Felix) in Margaret River, and they know it. It’s very pretty (although not as pretty as Voyager) and very spendy – the reserve tasting was $70 AU, which is more than 4 times more than almost anywhere we’ve been. Their wines were priced accordingly. So we tasted through many of their high end wines (not the $650.00 one) and they were all very well made and very refined – maybe a little too refined? The winery is both organic and seriously biodynamic, leading to modifiers for the wine names like “fruit day” “flower day” and my favorite, “Moon opposite Saturn”. Our pourer was their sommelier, a nice young guy who’d completed WSET 3 and was living the dream – their winemaker (Vanya Cullen, daughter of Kevin John Cullen and Diana Madeline Cullen, the original owners) has taken a liking to him and not only has him tasting all of their wines, including library wines, but also has him tasting great wines from around the world. He was very enthusiastic, used the word incredible an incredible number of times, and knew comparatively little about the actual winemaking process. I mention all the names above because many of the wines are named for them, often with the biodynamic tags listed above.

At Windance

The day continued to get better with lunch at Brewfarm, which is the restaurant we’d been hoping that River would be. We shared a bunch of small plates and had two 4-beer tasters and enjoyed them all. Daniel took our orders and we just sat at the table next to the space heater – in addition to being rainy all day it was cold. We’ll miss being pampered! This is a good place to talk about Aussie toilets again. Everywhere seems to have three types – Female Toilets, Male Toilets, and Unisex Toilets. They may be further classified as “Ambulant”, which seem to have a grab bar. So some of the toilets at this place were labeled Female Female Ambulant, and so on. Well, I find it fascinating.

We finished lunch at about 3, and our bus wasn’t until 4:45. We were all feeling like we’d done everything that needed to be done. The bus stop is just a stop, and it was still cold and windy and rainy, so our idea of just hanging out there until it was time to go was clearly not going to work. Daniel offered to let us come to his house and just sit by the fire again until it was time to go, which sounded perfect to us. So we did just that, and Lauren was gracious about being invaded, and it was a very pleasant end to our time together.

On the beach

We got to the bus stop just after 4:30 and the bus was already there. It was just a small shuttle bus for the short hop to Busselton, which seems to be the main stop between Perth and Margaret River (aka Margs in Aussie) whether you’re going by car or bus. Our Busselton-Perth bus was a standard long haul bus with a toilet, and we had an unremarkable ride to Perth Airport, arriving right on time at 8:45. Dave called the hotel for a shuttle and we waited outside for it – not raining in Perth. The airport seemed unusually busy for 9:00 – many people going in as well as coming out. There was a bit of a wait for the shuttle and I wondered if we should have just taken a taxi, but it turns out the shuttle didn’t take too long and a taxi is $40, which seems high. We got to the hotel and got checked into our very large, very basic room with a very thin blanket. We turned up the heat and went to bed.

A note about today's photos - we didn't take any pictures, so these are some photos of us that Daniel took. The only one from today is the top one at Brewfarm