Margaret River Part 2

by Miss Penny Black

Our second full day in MR was a tour called ‘All About Margaret River Wine and Chocolate Tour’, which was accurate but not very catchy. The company was just two guys, Dani was our drive for the day and he was from Chile, having moved to Australia four years ago. If you’re looking for a tour in the MR region, I’d highly recommend this one. Dani was an excellent guide who was friendly, knowledgeable and passionate about the region and supporting the smaller, family-owned businesses that were resisting the big companies that are buying up smaller wineries.

We were picked up from our apartments and joined a retired couple from Sydney, two sisters from Norway, and a couple of retired ladies from England. Everyone was very friendly and it was a great group to spend the day with, even if the couple from Sydney didn’t believe me when I told them the birds we could see at the farm were peacocks, not lyrebirds. I’ll let you be the judge.

First stop was a farm experience where we fed llamas, emus and then sat down for a breakfast of scones and tea or coffee. Something to fill the stomach before the wine tasting started!

We also stopped at Cowerup, a little tourist town we had already had a quick walk around the day before, to visit a chocolate maker called Temper Temper. They did some unusual flavours, including one with cauliflower!

They actually made the chocolate on the premises from imported cocoa beans. I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else in Australia that does that on such a small scale.

We had one wine tasting before lunch, where we sat outside in the garden of Juniper Winery, where an enthusiastic Englishman told us each wine was excellent. None of them really took my fancy, but it was a beautiful place to start our day’s drinking.

We stopped briefly at a lookout where I saw a whale spout in the far distance – I got very lucky on this trip with spotting the puffs of water out near the horizon, although sadly we didn’t see any close to land.

Lunch was at an olive farm and restaurant. We had ordered our food earlier so service was quick and we got to try their range of oils and preserves. Charmaine and I shared a mushroom pasta (divine) and delicious bruschetta before heading off to the next two wineries.

Winery 2 was a small producer and the lady who talked us through their wines was one of the owners. She was very knowledgeable and I found trying their rosé interesting as she gave us two samples, produced from the same grapes in two different years. Not only was the taste very different, but the colour was striking – one was a pale warm tawny and the other was a cool pink!

The third winery of the day was extremely generous with their tasting selection and we ended up ordering a mixed case sent home. In their vineyard I saw the biggest flock of black cockatoos I’ve ever seen – at least 30. At home we get the ones with yellow stripes under their tails, but these had white stripes.

Luke, Charmaine and I said goodbye to the group at about 4pm and had a little rest before going to the weirdest building on the main street, it was a bit steam-punk/cuckoo clock style. The guy at the front desk seemed mildly perturbed that we’d arrived without a booking but the food was great.

The restaurant had lots of little spaces, not one big room. I recommend going there if you go to MR… but make a booking!

It’s two restaurants plus accommodation all in one premises.

Day 3! 22/9/25 Coffee, Art, A Beach And Chocolate

Our last full day in Margaret River. I woke up early and went for a little solo walk. I find if I don’t spend at least a bit of time by myself when I’m on holidays I go mad. Or rather, I get mad and Luke bears the brunt. So I went and had a coffee in a little cafe that was also a health food shop and I watched people coming in and out. Then I walked back to the apartments and realised Luke might like a coffee so I got one for him from a bakery on the main street that had the best looking pastries I’ve seen in a long time. I didn’t end up going back for any, which I’m a bit sad about!

Luke and I took a walk after breakfast and had a look at some street art, and at a gallery nearby. It had an exhibition by Yorkshire artist, Chris Williamson, who did illustrations for children’s books, but also had little sculptures on the wall next to each original pice and you could look in the drawing for the sculpture. His work was very intricate and beautiful.

We met up with Charmaine and our next stop was the Elephant Beach Cafe. it’s the only cafe in the area that is right on the beach and it had a magnificent view of the beach, cliffs and emerald green water. We watched the wait staff whisk all the plates away to avoid attracting the seagulls that plague every outdoors space.

We walked up to the headland and looked further along the coast. There was an interesting rock formation under the water where seaweed had filled in the cracks, making tessellating shapes. I was very glad of my sunglasses, everywhere in Margaret River is so blinding!

Astonishingly, Charmaine didn’t suffer any injuries on this trip. Maybe the curse has lifted!

In the afternoon we visited two chocolate shops. The first was the Margaret River Chocolate Company, which is big but I didn’t find their range of produce very interesting.

We visited a smaller business nearby that had a smaller selection but talked us through a tasting of chocolate from different regions around the world. We could taste the difference between African and South American chocolate and bought some to take to Rottnest Island for our friends to try.

Our last stop of the day was back to Cowaramup (again) and we managed to find, in the tiny strip of shops, two shops we hadn’t previously visited. We bought some cheese and ended up having a lovely evening on our balcony drinking some of the wine we’d bought and eating the cheese with some relish and crackers. This always reminds me of Luke’s parents, Lea and Pete, and their long evenings of cheese and chatting!

Busselton Jetty, Thursday September 25/9/25

We left Margaret River before 8am, still being on Melbourne time. Poor Charmaine was still waking up at 2am!

As always, we turned up quite early, and had time for breakfast at The Goose, a cafe right by the tourist office in Busselton. Another restaurant with a beautiful view and the weather was perfect.

Always Luke chooses dessert for breakfast!

We boarded the little train that ran along the pier and had a chat to a nice family who recommended a place with sunset views in Fremantle the following night. I booked a table straight away.

The trip along the jetty was nice but the underwater observatory at the end was really my cup of tea! A circular cement structure with windows along a the way that circled down, and you could look through at the ecosystem that had built a reef on the jetty pylons.

Going scuba diving out here would be amazing! There’s an underwater sculpture garden too, although we couldn’t see it. Several days previously two young blue whales had been swimming around the jetty – sadly not on our day!

The reef has only been growing for a few years but there’s so much to see.

We decided to walk back and were glad or our hats and long sleeves, the sun felt quite spicy.

Feeling like we’d done everything we needed to do, we got in the car and headed for Fremantle.

We had booked rooms at a Rydges hotel that had once been an old pub. It had a beautiful veranda around the outside but the inside was more modern and cavernous.

Kelvin has flown in that afternoon so Charmaine went to meet him. Luke and I had a couple of drinks in the bar then walked through the park to the Bathers Beach restaurant. There were some very photogenic tugboats in the harbour next door and an octopus sculpture too.

One of my favourite photos from the trip

Bathers Beach itself isn’t large but a few people were gathered for the sunset. Inside the restaurant it was a bit blinding, but the food was good and we shared a bunch of small plates.

Apart from a huge, empty Ferris wheel, there wasn’t much going on around our hotel at night so after a couple of drinks in the bar we headed to bed, still somewhat on Victorian time.

Next stop: Rottnest Island!

4Oct2024

Raymond Island

by Miss Penny Black

Every year we catch up with Luke’s family (parents Lea and Pete, sister Erin and her partner Brendan and their three girls) and all go on holiday together somewhere in Victoria. This year our trip was to Raymond Island, which sits just off the coast of Paynesville in south-eastern Victoria. It’s about 3 hour’s drive from Melbourne through the very green Gippsland countryside. Luke’s family all came from Albury, so they drove over the mountains and Brendan got car sick. I’m sure he’ll appreciate me mentioning this in the first paragraph.

Raymond Island is in the Gippsland Lake system. Ninety Mile beach runs along a strip of land on the ocean front, which keeps the waters of the lakes much calmer.

Unusually, despite it being only about 200 metres from the mainland, Raymond Island is accessible only by ferry. The ferry only takes five minutes but if you’re outside the continuous service hours, sometimes you have to wait about half an hour for it to return. Foot traffic is free on the ferry but cars are $14 return.

We are staying about 2km from the ferry port on Western Boulevard.

The ferry crosses where it says ‘Raymond Island’ on the map.

Our house sits right next to the power pole which brings all the power to every house on the island. I probably wouldn’t have even been aware of this fact if we hadn’t arrived to discover the whole island was out of power thanks to a large catamaran catching the power line and breaking the connection.

The power pole was slightly bent by the accident and now has to be removed.

For the first day we avidly watched all the workmen come and go and talked to locals about the progress. The power came back about 7pm on the second day. Luckily we had a bbq, the hot water was heated by gas, we had a log fire and the caretaker brought us a bag of candles. As Lea said, it only makes the holiday more memorable!

Luke and I drove down on Monday and stopped at the Morwell Top Pub for lunch. I mainly wanted to write this down because the lunch was really good and if we come this way again we would definitely break the trip there.

We made it to the island by 4pm and caught the ferry over. The island has no shops or really much to do, but it is well-known for its resident koalas!

There are supposed to be over 200 but we didn’t see any on our arrival.

The house we are staying in was booked by me through Stayz. It is two storeys and has all the kitchen and lounge etc on the top floor to make the most of the views.

Erin, Brendan and the girls are in the downstairs space where there is a queen sized bed and a room with three sets of bunks. Lea, Pete, Luke and myself are sleeping upstairs, which has worked out well with the girls waking at the crack of dawn each day. I spent last week in Orange while Mum was in the Base Hospital recovering from her hip replacement, so this has been a good chance to catch up on some sleep after staying in her hospital room for three nights.

The weather the first full day we were here was very windy but it was pretty still from then on and we’ve been out walking lots and gone over to Paynesville on the ferry for coffee.

We also walked the koala trail and saw lots of koalas!

Along the koala walk was a kookaburra sitting very still and watching all the people go by.

If you’ve never heard a kookaburra’s call, search for it online and have a listen, they are very unusual!

There is a house that hires Surrey bikes to travel along the koala trail. Erin, Brendan and the girls tried them out.

Rather than slog around on heavy bikes, Lea, Pete, Luke and I went to the Metung Hot Springs, with lunch at the Metung Pub on our way there.

I hadn’t even heard of Metung before, but it’s a very posh little hamlet on the water and the pub had a lovely view over all the yachts. We arrived to find the place pretty booked out, but the waiter said a party of four was very late so he gave us their table right by the window.

I couldn’t say no to fish and chips with a view like this.

Next were the hot springs. The Metung ones are part of the same chain as the more established Mornington Peninsula Hot Springs. The ones in Metung are only two years old so they don’t have as many pools. We were lucky in our timing as there weren’t many people there so we got to sit in the hottest pools – individual barrels – that overlooked the lakes.

The barrels sit half under the decking, there’s actually lots of leg room.

The time limit for the barrels was ten minutes, so we got in and out a few times and moved to a larger and cooler barrel pool and a shallow ‘stargazing’ pool, which was sloped so you could lie back and look up.

We spoke to a staff member who said many more pools were planned and it certainly felt like they needed more, the capacity of the place wouldn’t be huge right now. I’d like to come back in a few years and see it when it has expanded.

My main tip would be to wear sandals in, don’t leave them at the lockers. I left mine and some of the paths were pretty sharp gravel.

The springs are about 50 minutes from Raymond Island by road.

One morning Luke and I took a drive across to the back of the island to Gravelly Beach, which is much more pebbly than gravelly. It was pretty much empty and the water was almost completely still. We could see tiny fish swimming about and the beach was covered in tiny shells.

There was quite a bit of seaweed but also some patches that were clearer. Everyone else went to the beach later than us when the wind had picked up some more. That’s the problem with the seaside – so often the lovely weather is chilled by the winds. The water temperature was around 13 degrees, so far too cold to be getting in anyway, although the girls have wetsuits so they have managed it.

On our last afternoon on the island we all went down to the little beach on the far end of Western Boulevard, about 500 metres from our house. Brendan played beach cricket with Evie and Lola, while Thea hid from the curious black swans.

Looks tropical until you feel the water temperature

All the animals on the island were very friendly… too friendly for some!

On the final morning Luke and I packed the car and then met everyone else at the ferry to go over to Ginny’s Cafe, which we’d all been to multiple times by then.

I like being in a place long enough to go back to the good places repeatedly. We also had dinner at the Old Pub one night, which wasn’t fancy but the food was fine.

Last thing to do was get a stranger to take a photo of us in front of the ferry before heading home.

Hopefully we’ll be back one day and when we do the weather will be just as good! As we drove out of Paynesville the first few drops of rain started falling, as if to emphasise our return to everyday life. From here Lea and Pete are visiting family, Erin and Brendan et al are heading to Wilson’s Prom then back to Lakes Entrance to spend time with Brendan’s family.

The duck family we watched from the balcony

A family of magpies kept an eye on the food situation on our balcony.

Altogether a very successful holiday!

22Jan2023

Cumberland River Camping 2023

by Miss Penny Black

Cumberland River sits in the Otway National Park, just west of the (somewhat exclusive) beach town of Lorne. It is situated on the Great Ocean Road, about three hours south west (or five hours if you’re going in Summer while every man and his dog is heading to their 3 million dollar beach house) of Melbourne.

Jess and Leah have been going there for years, but I took my first trip last Summer. The campsites have to be booked by the previous March as it’s a super popular campsite and it’s easy to see why.

Kids enjoying the deep spot in the river while the mum in the foreground told us about the tiger snake they saw there once, that swam down the length of the pool while everyone leapt out as fast as they could.

Jess takes her nephew, Jett, while Leah takes her son, Jiah. They are pretty close in age, so when they aren’t arguing they are having a ball.

We book the campsite for seven nights each year and last year I went for four nights, this time I only managed one. I’d come back from the cruise to find that our friend who had been minding the house was still recovering from Covid and somewhat worse for wear, then when I got to the campsite I got a request to return to help look after a friend who is in Melbourne but is suffering from long Covid.

Rather than set up a tent, I take Luke’s car, which has ample room for one person to sleep when I add in a couple of foam mattresses. Sleeping in the car is great as it is a nice flat surface and the car body cuts out some of the sounds of the campsite. this year we camped close to the river, which meant nice water sounds rather than people talking.

After I arrived I walked down to the deeper bit of the river with Leah to watch the boys mess around in their little blow-up boat. Unfortunately the water was quite cold or I would’ve waded in.

Our campsite. Since the boys are obsessed with fire (what child isn’t??) Jess bought them boxes of matches to experiment in the fire drum that the campsite provides. needless to say, they didn’t last long!

In the evening Leah made dinner with jackfruit (a meat substitute), which I’d never tried before, and then we walked to the beach, which is just across the road from the campsite.

*Kind of looks like tuna but the taste is a bit sweet. We had it in burritos with bbq sauce. Tasty!*

The waves at the beach are way too rough for swimming but it’s the only place where phones have reception so we walked down and the boys entertained themselves by doing what kids do: smashing things.

After a bit of texting with Luke I headed back and despite the early hour I ended up in bed by 9:30.

In the morning I woke up surprisingly late to find a small mob of kangaroos eating grass quite close to the car. Leah and I watched them for a bit and a huge male hopped over and then, rather annoyingly, decided to sit right next to my car door just as I decided to go to Lorne. I waited him out and eventually got away.

I had breakfast in a bakery in town and was joined by a very polite cockatoo, who sat very close to me but kept quiet while edging gently forward.

Then I took a walk along the much longer and safer Lorne beach. I took some photos of the rocks and seagulls.

Halfway down the beach I got the call to come back to Melbourne. I initially decided to wait until the following day, but by the time I got back to the campsite I’d changed my mind. It would be nice to have a full day at home before packing up once more, so I left. On the drive back I spotted an echidna crossing a fairly quiet country road. It’s little waddling run was super cute, but when I see something like this I spend the rest of the trip praying that the wee beast doesn’t get run over.

I did feel somewhat refreshed from the tree-bathing and beach-walking, however being at home was lovely too. All the moving around I’ve done lately makes me appreciate home anew every time I return, and that’s definitely one of the pleasures of travel!

3Nov2018

Lamai Beach

by Miss Penny Black

I am writing this from home, having discovered that the last two posts I wrote about Lamai (our last stop) have disappeared. This means that several paragraphs of me complaining about Justin Bieber on high (and I mean HIGH) rotation in every hotel, restaurant and bar in Thailand will just have to be done without – sad, I know. It honestly seemed as though some governing body in Thailand had issued the same 10 track CD to every likely establishment in the country and by the end of our three weeks I thought seriously about sticking a fork in my ears.

Lamai Beach

Audio-torture aside, we had a nice time during our last week. Lamai is a beach just south of the more famous Chaweng Beach, which runs down the eastern side of Koh Samui. This was our third trip to the island and we had decided to try Lamai as it seemed a bit quieter – the parade of hawkers, spherical and sunburned eurotrash, and whizzing jet skis of course has it’s charms (in terms of cautionary tales, perhaps) but we’d heard good things about Lamai.

Lovely lush tropical gardens in our resort.

We definitely experienced quiet. In the evenings the beach was almost deserted as it was the low season and some of the bars and restaurants were completely closed. Despite this, our resort (The Pavilion) was at least half full and there were families and groups out on the beach throughout the day. Only one jet ski at a time seemed to be in operation too, so that was also something.

Lamai main street.

A big sign on the beach warned that it was jellyfish season so I did get in the sea a couple of times but tried to keep Luke between myself and the open water.

On our second last night I made the mistake of looking up the kinds of jellyfish and related incidents to be found locally and scared myself out of going back in. Fortunately the hotel pool was perfectly fine – although Luke wasn’t happy that it had not been heated to bath temperatures.

We ate out every night and enjoyed a great number of 70-140 baht cocktails. If you’re heading to the area we highly recommend Pik’s Bar. They have a list of 140 cocktails and they’re all the equivalent of $3 AUD each.

Pik’s Bar

Lea decided Pina Coladas were the best thing since sliced bread and after her first we barely saw her without one in her hand, even at breakfast! Just kidding, of course. We didn’t usually start drinking until we’d spent at least 8 hours reading books on our sun loungers.

Our only activity, apart from eating, swimming, reading, and drinking, was watching the local gang of dogs wrestle each other up and down the beach. A form of entertainment familiar to everyone who has ever been to the coast of Thailand.

We became quite familiar with the pack and one morning I found one of them (who looked a bit like our old dog Penny) asleep on the walkway right outside our room. After that I bought a little packet of dog treats from the 7-11 and handed them out whenever they came near.

We did find a few really lovely places to eat in Lamai, one of which wasn’t Thai (all the Thai places are excellent, mind you) called Emporio Caffè.

The proprietor and chef was an Italian fellow from Rome who made the pasta by hand and shared some of his grappa and limoncello with us. The pasta was outstanding and so of course we went back two nights later. Although it was a very simple cafe it had the typical frescos. If you find yourself in Lamai be sure to go!

Luke and I left Samui on a very early flight and spent a night at the Novotel in Bangkok before a daytime flight back to Melbourne. I ended up with a headache from watching three movies and the entire available catalogue of Big Bang Theory (it’s the show I watch when there’s nothing better to watch) and disembarked at about 8:30pm to find Melbourne airport the busiest we’d ever seen it.

The lady managing the extensive Sky Bus queue told the people in line that the trouble was that the Cox Plate (a prestigious horse race), Pax (a games convention) and a Taylor Swift concert were all happening on the same weekend.

Once we got into the city we discovered that in fact the Taylor Swift concert had just emptied out from the stadium beside the station and there were crowds five deep to get onto the trains. We ended up standing up for the 50 minutes it took to get home and then walked the last kilometre. The guy at the local kebab stand spied us walking past (this was at almost midnight) and asked Luke if we were going hiking.

Arriving home was a bit weird. Last time we’d come back we’d had a house full of people and Penny to greet us. This time it was more like letting ourselves into another Airbnb. Luke had paid for professional cleaners to go through the house before we returned and they’d cleaned some things well – and some things not so well. A lot of our belongings were in boxes as friends had lived in the house while we’d been gone.

We lay down on a mattress in the spare room, turned out the light, and agreed solemnly that really, there’s no place like home.

Pik’s Bar

14Aug2018

Swimming in Nice

by Miss Penny Black

Even though we packed a lot of organised activities into our time in Nice we did other things too.

One afternoon we put on our swimmers and headed for the beach. Many European beaches are at least semi-private. I think the worst ones are where you have to pay just to get on the sand/pebbles but in Nice there’s one enormous stretch of beach called the Bay of Angels. It has a 6km promenade that was built by the English many years ago as it was they who popularised Nice and the surrounding towns as a holiday destination. They came in winter to enjoy the milder temperatures and often on doctor’s orders for the clean, dry air.

The Nice beach is pebbles, although once you go further west the beaches become sand. Every hundred metres or so the beach alternates between public and private. The private sections have rows of beach chairs plus often a bar or restaurant. The two we checked out (at the very eastern end of the beach) were about 20 euro to hire a beach lounge for the day. When we went down to ask we found that both places had no beach lounges available for hire but it was possible to sit for free in the more shaded undercover area at the back and so we did that and took turns going into the water.

Unless you’re set on sunbathing, sitting up the back in the full shade is a much better option and few other people seem to want to do it. The chairs are comfortable, it’s not as bright and it’s cooler – and free! We only ordered two drinks each in the couple of hours we were there and the prices weren’t terrible either. So if you’re looking for a place in Nice to avoid the heat give it a go!