Rich's Birthday Adventures
As Rich was working away for his actual birthday, I wanted to surprise him with a weekend away somewhere for when he would be back home so that we could celebrate properly. I decided a few months ago that Margaret River in the South West would be a perfect place for us to get away. I'd never been but heard how beautiful it was. I'd assumed Rich had been before, but when I finally revealed where we were going, he was so excited as he'd only ever driven through and never actually stayed or done anything there before. I was bursting with excitement prior to telling him where we were going. He knew we were going away for the weekend, but didn’t know where – though he did have his suspicions. He was very happy when his suspicions turned out to be correct.
I planned the weekend away around where there would be Tesla chargers and I even managed to book accommodation in Margaret River that had a Destination Charger so that we would be able to charge the car overnight. My plan seemed to work even more when the first Supercharger in WA opened a couple of weeks before our trip. Superchargers allow really fast charging, meaning the South West of Australia has now been opened up to us – we can stop for something to eat and the car is fully charged, meaning we have a full ‘tank’ of electrons for continuing on our journey to further afield places. Rich was very excited that I’d factored a trip that involved charging up at the new Supercharger! Girlfriend points for me, I think!
Margaret River is 270km (168 miles) south of Perth and is Western Australia’s famous wine region, having the perfect soil and weather conditions for that tasty wine we all know and love. If you ever buy Australian wine, have a look at the bottle to see if you’re purchasing from WA’s Margaret River – it’s a bloomin’ good choice! We set off straight after I finished work on Friday afternoon, charged up in Eaton at the Supercharger whilst having some amazing Asian food (as always with Rich – it was his birthday after all!) and arrived down in Margs late on Friday night. We were very excited for the next day’s adventures as I had booked us both onto a wine tour as another surprise. You can’t come to Margs and not do a wine tour, right?
We had an amazing day checking out four wineries, a brewery, a cheese farm and a chocolate factory – all of our favourite things! We tried 42 different wines and beers; needless to say we were feeling a little bit merry by the end of the day. Our tour guide was awesome and made our day very enjoyable.
It was a ‘Bushtucker’ tour meaning for lunch we had some local Australian produce, including kangaroo and crocodile! The crocodile was not what I was expecting and it was actually really nice. The lunch, consisting of lots of local meats, cheese and relishes, was delicious.
Not only were we enjoying amazing food and drink, but the surroundings were absolutely stunning. Margaret River most definitely lived up to my expectations – we enjoyed (and bought) lots of nice wine, cheese and chocolate in the most beautiful area with a fantastic group of people. We couldn’t just end the fun there though, so we decided to hit the pub for a few drinks with our new friends. It was a brilliant day, but after too much wine and sunshine, we were more than happy to head to bed after a delicious dinner.
As we were having such gorgeous weather (it had been raining a LOT in Perth recently, so it was glorious to finally feel a little bit of spring), we thought we would check out some of the surrounding areas and that always means the beach with us. A friend of a friend had mentioned Yallingup to me and said it boasted of beautiful beaches and crystal clear water. I was sold at the word ‘beach’! It certainly did not disappoint. I was blown away by the colour of the sea on this beautiful Western Australian beach. On many occasions now, I have had to pinch myself that these kind of amazing places are right on my doorstep and yet again on Yallingup Beach, I had once such moment where I just felt completely in awe at where we live. Back in the UK, I always wanted to go overseas on holidays to experience amazing beaches and lovely hot weather and I feel like we have this all in WA – I feel so lucky to call this beautiful state my home. I can’t ever quite get over it.
No day is ever complete without a picnic as far as I am concerned – so we had a light ‘snack’ on the beach and had some of our lovely cheeses that we’d purchased the previous day on our wine tour. Seriously good cheese and onion jam. Yum!
We’d passed a sign for Yallingup Maze and Rich couldn’t make his mind up about whether he wanted to go or not – in the end he made the decision that he would like to go and I happily obliged for the birthday boy! It was brilliant fun, made even better by the water pistols that were provided. You don’t have to be a kid to enjoy a water fight whilst trying to find your way through a maze! For adults, the rule was to head to each corner of the maze in order from 1-4 – I found this WAY too hard though and breaking all the rules, I went to the corners as I found them – Rich had to go and do it properly and in order though, the show off! We spent a good hour in the maze and it was actually such great fun. Big kids R US!
We then had a nice lunch and a walk around the ‘dam’ (it’s a lake in my opinion, but Aussies call it a dam, according to Rich – still trying to get used to all these different terms!). Even the colour of the water in the dam was extremely pretty!
Our next little stop was Dunsborough – a lady at one of the wineries on our wine tour had told us that she’d seen lots of whales a few days before and now was a perfect time of year to go and see them, as they’re making their way back to the south after their migration to the north earlier in the year. We had a walk to the whale-watching lookout at the lighthouse and it was spectacular. There were loads of them and I was very surprised at just how many we could easily see from our viewpoint. It certainly got me thinking about how amazing it is they migrate north for the winter and that they know where and when to go. Animal instincts are incredible! We saw some pretty big tale splashes as they came up for air – it certainly looked like they were having a whale of a time!
The weekend had gone far too quickly and it was time to start heading back home (after another visit to the Asian restaurant again, of course! The food was pretty good in there, I have to say.) It had been a really lovely weekend; we’d had gorgeous weather and packed in quite a lot over just two days. We were very sad for it to be over as it didn’t feel as though we’d had long enough really. Weekends just go far too quickly.
Sometimes in the temporary work that I am currently doing I end up having a day or two off in between roles and it NEVER works out that the random days off coincide with when Rich is home from working away. It always seems to be that I’ll have a couple of days off when he is away, which is super annoying as it would be lovely to spend a few more days together before he flies off to site. However, this time, we were lucky enough that it had worked out and we ended up having Monday off together, which was fab. We would've loved to have stayed down south and extend our stay in Margs, but annoyingly I had to meet with someone for my new role that I was starting on Tuesday, so we had to get back to Perth on the Sunday evening. We knew it would only be a short meeting however and decided that after I’d finished, we’d go off somewhere for more adventures. I met the man for all of a five minutes (very annoying, but had to be done) and then Rich and I set off for a drive up north to The Pinnacles, which is approx. 200km north from Perth. Rich had only been up there recently when his friend had been visiting from the UK, but he was super excited for me to experience it.
The weather in Perth was downright awful (seriously spring, where are you?) so I was a little dubious at going out sightseeing for the day; it was blowing an absolute hoolie and chucking it down with rain – not exactly perfect conditions for exploring! However, Rich assured me that it would be considerably nicer (and at least warmer) up there – the further north you go in Australia, the hotter it is, and it looked as though the weather was a little bit better than Perth anyway.
We stopped off in Cervantes to charge the car, have lunch and go for a little walk along the beach. Though it wasn’t raining, it was still ridiculously windy on the beach! It was certainly very different from the beach experience in Yallingup the day before.
When we got to The Pinnacles, the sun had come out for us, which made the day even more enjoyable as the sight before us looked incredible – yellow sand and a bright blue sky. It looked very Australian indeed. It was an amazing sight. Hundreds and hundreds of natural limestone structures loomed out of the desert. These structures were formed naturally around 25,000-30,000 years ago and it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I’d seen pictures, but wasn’t prepared for just how many of these formations there would be. I thought there was just a few, I didn’t realise you had to drive round the desert because there was just that many of them. It was spectacular and a wonderful experience. My wish even came true as at the end of the day we saw a couple of kangaroos – very fitting for the landscape.
It was a great weekend and so nice to explore more of Western Australia; there is just so much to see and I am looking forward to the next little adventure – as always!
