chocolate | Here Comes The Planet

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!

The day’s plans were somewhat set back by me feeling rather under the weather from the previous evening. Luke got me some toast from the hostel kitchen and made sure I was ok before heading out at 11am to join a walking tour.

I went back to sleep and by 1pm I was ready to get out and about. Fortunately, with the sky being light until nearly 10pm, there’s no rush to get into things early.

Our first activity was to do a walk from one mountain to another along a ridge. we caught a train up to Uetliberg.

There were quite a few people but most were going to the lookout. The trail we were walking featured a scale model of the solar system. But first, these weird reindeer lights.

The view was pretty good, the weather was very fair but became windy and cloudy right at the end.

I didn’t take a photo of the sun at the beginning but it was the width of two basket balls. Some of the planets were so tiny they were encased in Perspex. I think this one is Ceres (not a planet obviously).

Here’s a better one of Saturn. They were clearly in the process of installing new benches. The path was very well set up, with toilets about half way, lots of rest stops and even places you could light fires and have barbecues.

And of course many of the ubiquitous natural springs.

Almost every mountain top in Switzerland has a hotel. This is the view looking back at Uetliberg.

We saw these bright orange butterflies along the trail.

Looking down to Zürich.

We got a message from Lea and Pete while we were walking, saying they had arrived in Melbourne after an uneventful flight.

The road was gravel the whole way (sandals were a bit of a mistake, bits of rock got caught in them) and the occasional cat went past, but apart from one steep-ish bit it was definitely a family friendly walk.

At the opposite end was a cable car down but we stopped at the mountain-top restaurant for a drink first.

A very distant view of snow-capped peaks.

The cable car was short but offered a good view and wasn’t crowded. we had bought a multi-zone 24hr public transport ticket. It was about $30 each and covered all the trains, ferries, cable cars, funiculars, trams – everything. That being said, no one, at any point, checked our ticket and there were no gates that needed a ticket to get through so if you were in Zurich on a very tight budget you could probably get around for free.

Love a cable car!

Next was a walk down to the train station and a ride back into the city. We ate our cornflakes chocolate on the way. It almost had the texture of popping candy chocolate.

The cheap bars of chocolate are very good and only work out to about $1.50 AUD.

Next activity: the funicular! It was tiny. It only went a short way up the hill, from the riverside to the university.

A very cute little station house.

We had then planned to go on a ferry down the river to make the most of our ticket but the ferry finished by 6pm.

We took a walk along the river, enjoying the sun on the buildings and the dark clouds overhead.

The clock face in the background is supposedly the largest in Europe – slightly bigger than Big Ben.

I’d watched some videos online about things to do in Zurich and one suggested the “Zürich car show, which runs from January 1st to December 31st every year”. Zürich isn’t quite as luxury car-heavy as Monaco but it isn’t far off. We didn’t make too much of an effort to look for them, not being car people, but I took photos of a few.

My favourite! I don’t know what make it is though.

Actually, I didn’t see any more luxury cars here than in Windermere, but I can definitely say the people of Zürich are the best dressed I’ve ever seen. Somehow at least 80% of the population look like they’ve just stepped off a yacht, despite this being a landlocked country.