The Udder Life: Margaret River (Day 12)

We've packed up camp from Perth and headed south. Yesterday we arrived in Bunbury which compared to the distances we've done, is only a short hop, step and jump. My very good friend Darrel lives here (well, Australind to be presice) and we caught up with him and his wife Kellie and their kids Adi and Matt for dinner. I did get a pic of Kellie but none of Darrel, so I will post pics of them later on when I get one of all of them.

My cousin Dario also lives in Australind but he works in the mines and is currently up in north. We are catching up with him and his wife Jodie on Friday for morning tea just before we leave the area.

We have run into a bit of a bother concerning accommodation. We had forgotten all about Easter looming and because of this, every caravan park right down the west coast is chokka block. So instead of travelling down to Margaret River and Augusta, we have to leave Bunbury and head inland. We will travel to Hyden - famous for Wave Rock - and then go south from there. We might then be at the tail end of the Easter rush, and will be able to get in at Esperance.

So for the meantime, we headed down to Margaret River from here.

First stop was Bussellton and the famous 2km jetty. We missed the train ride out to the end by about 3 minutes, so rather than wait another hour, we decided to simply walk as far as we could with the kids. A 2km jetty is quite along way with a stumbling 5yo and an awkward 2yo. Dad was quite nervous about them getting too close to the edge, so once the rail finished on one side, about 1km along, he called it quits and we headed back. Good thing too, because the weather was closing in fast and there was rain in them thar clouds!! (say that with a Yankee drawl!).

These plaques were for people who's ashes had been scattered off the jetty. Lovely mementos.

Onwards to Margaret River, however, with kids, there is not much chance of doing a winery crawl. We did managed to nick into one - Sandalford - and we also went to the Cheek Monkey brewery and cidery. This one had a great playground for the kids, so it was very easy to 'waste' a couple of hours here. The tasting platters were not bad either!

yep...I drank pretty much all of them on my own because Mark was driving!! Yay!

The MR Chocolate Factory was a bit of a hit. I have never been so pleased to be allergic to chocolate. I'm glad I wasn't the one making a choice of only one or two items. Whilst I don't like chocolate, I do appreciate it as a product and there was certainly enough on display here. This place has changed a lot in the years since I was here last.

mountains of chocolate

Choc Mousse

Choc ice-cream

Another stop was the MR Silk Road. This company is very new in MR (last 12 months) and has a thriving silk worm farm operating. They send all the cocoons over to Asia where they have rural ladies do the extracting and spinning of the silk. They have developed some large greenhouses for the mulberry trees, which are the leaves that the worms eat. They also have a sideline of mulberry jams and sauces too. The silk is returned in finished product form (dresses, scarves, purses, cushion covers etc).

Watching silk worms do their thing

On the way home, we went through Coweramup (I should check that spelling). Down the main street there are lifesize cows positioned like they were simply grazing and in the paddock! Such a great concept and a great tourist drawcard. Pity that it wouldn't work in Colac. The bloody vandals would have them destroyed in about 2 seconds flat.