World Australia Western Australia Cowaramup

Round Australia with Ev and Az

Day 104-106 – Margaret River Nov 3, 2009

Monday – Serve the wine, serve the cheese

The morning started with a play on the playground and again, a lighthouse, this time on the southern most point of the region, in fact the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. The coastline around the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse is very dramatic but we had looked inside a lighthouse yesterday and there was an admission charge to walk in the grounds so we decided to give it a miss and walk along the rocks on the coast instead

Back into Margaret River township where we again attempted to arrange Aaron’s passport. Again it would not have been ready in time. Get this, the post office said it would take 2 days to get it from Perth….Its 4 hours away by road, how can it take two days? Maybe someone should invent something called express post where things are delivered overnight. I can see it now, there would be bright yellow envelopes, yellow post boxes………

Margaret River also had a book exchange to top up the book supplies, quiet nights lead to a lot of reading. There also happened to be a fudge factory in town which just had to be done. Which state did I leave that diet in again?

Starting the wine tasting this morning was at an old favourite from 1997,Redgate wines. We were not disappointed so again the credit card took a beating. Mum, expect mysterious boxes to start appearing on your doorstep. We decided sending to either of our respective sisters was just too dangerous, they may have just disappeared without trace after delivery.

In the last 12 years the Margaret River region has grown phenomenally. At the moment it has 120 wineries with 90 cellar doors. Apparently this is not a challenge. Unfortunately the overall standard has not been maintained as the growth has happened. There are still a few gems but they are more the exception than the rule as they used to be.

After lunch back in the van we headed out to a winery (surprise), Howling Wolf in this case, just for the name and then a nut shop and the chocolate factory. How many ways are there to indulge in this place?

As part of our lighthouse tour yesterday there was entry to a nearby cave system. Ngilgi cave – pronounced Nil-gi. While we were waiting to go in Aaron completely lost it, understandable considering he had barely slept all day so Evan and I tackled the cave alone while Al drove Aaron around for a sleep.

The cave itself was quite impressive. Much larger inside than most of the caves we have seen on the trip and also Jenolan. The whole region has over 300 caves along the 120km limestone ridge, of which you can get into about 5-6 of them.

Driving home tonight I just managed to dodge a kangaroo and break in time to avoid a rabbit on the road. Don’t these animals know a good percentage of drivers in the area are not at 100% by late afternoon?

Guess what, it was a BBQ for dinner again followed by a good red and some good cheeses after the boys were in bed. Yes I know I have been a bit slow updating the diary but the question I have been facing, typing or a 2001 Happs Shiraz? You decide.

Tuesday – Melting Plastic

Another day and another cave. If you think about it the cave opens at 9am and the wineries generally are not open until 10am. There is a full hour to fill there. Actually for us we have two-three hours to fill, from 6 or 7am when the boys wake us up until 9am. The playground and the farm animals are helping with that.

As we were driving towards the cave, Mammoth cave this time, we watched a 5-6foot tiger snake slither across the road in front of us. Ominously it was headed in the direction of the caves. As we were buying the tickets there was a warning sign, “snakes in the area”. The ranger started to advise us to make a lot of noise as we walked through the bush, and then stopped when we both started looking at Ev. We had that covered.

After the cave it was two wineries this morning, Xanadu and Stella Bella. Jo, the second one was in your honour. The two were at opposite ends of the ‘pretentiousness scale’ but both were actually very good. Can you hear the credit card getting warm?

That is an observation of the changes over here since our last visit. The pretentiousness, particularly the tasting rooms has increased. The theory seems to be, the bigger the gate and the more stylish the tasting room, the more you charge for the wine. Stella Bella was sold from a cottage on the back of the farm and it was better than a lot of others we had tasted. We guess you have to have the big tasting rooms if you want to attract the bus tours and there seem to be plenty of them around…..and strangely, lots of Japanese tourists.

Aaron finally fell asleep in the car as we pulled back into the van park for lunch. As his opportunities for day sleeps have been pretty limited recently, we let him sleep in the car (windows down of course – it’s not the casino) while we all had lunch. We gave him lunch when he woke up again, which happened to be in a micro brewery.

Can I ask that no-one forward that last paragraph to DOCS?. Thanks

Cape Mentelle (excellent), Sandalford (very good) and Woody Nook (good) completed the afternoon’s tasting. The credit card is not just hot anymore, it’s melted and/or disintegrated. I think it might be time to head out of the wine regions. This is getting far too expensive.

Maybe I can do something less expensive tomorrow, like go diving…..Oops!

Wednesday – Swan dive

First thing this morning we drove up to Dunsborough as I had booked myself to do a dive of the former HMAS Swan. Once I had been dropped off Al and the boys wandered to Smiths Beach for a play before heading onto the Yallingup Shearing shed. Here the boys watched shearing demonstrations, sheep being rounded up and got to feed the sheep.

Ev got to bottle feed a lamb which he described as the highlight of his day. As you will see from the photos Aaron did his best to communicate with the sheep. He is part kiwi (a small part) but strangely the sheep were not nervous.

Back to the van park for lunch and again Aaron slept through lunch so he was just finishing his sandwich when they came to pick up dad from the Dive shop.

A warning, tune out now if you are not interested in diving…Ok you have been warned

Setting off from a beach in Dunsborough the dive boat took about 20 minutes to arrive at the site of the HMAS Swan. On the way we watched a couple of humpbacks playing off the side of the boat. The whales were easy to find, they were right beside the whale watching boat. How convenient

OK, a bit of History. The HMAS Swan was a Destroyer escort during its time with the RAN. In December 1997 it was sunk off Dunsborough as an artificial reef. The ship is 113 metres long, 12 metres wide and 23 metres tall. Prior to its sinking, the boat was gutted and large(ish) holes (approx 2 metres were cut in the side to allow access for divers…..Very thoughtful.

Water is very clear, once at depth has an incredible deep blue, almost purple. As you descend you see this ominous blue darkness and then slowly this monstrous shape starts to appear and quickly becomes the unmistakable shape of a warship. All this time we could hear the whales’ song through the water. It was surreal

The first dive of the morning took us down along the deck of the ship and then around the bow. It was here we found a 2.5 metre wobbygon shark lying on the sandy bottom. Even though they have no teeth no-one was very interested in going down to play with it, myself included.

From here we swam in through one of the access holes and back out through the gun turret. Next was a swim into the former operations room, most of the racks for the equipment are still there, while obviously anything valuable like the equipment or dangerous like wires have been removed.

From here we swam up and into the old bridge where you could get a great view of the front half of the ship (or as far as visibility would allow), just as the captain would have while it was active. Interestingly when the ship was sunk they did leave one seat on the bridge. You could say it is waterlogged and despite our best efforts we could not manage to maneuver ourselves around to actually sit in it. Not easy in confined spaces with all our gear attached.

As we swam outside and around the funnel and the mast you could see how much coral and life had accumulated in the last 12 years. You can also see how fast the rust is reclaiming the boat. I am not sure how long it is intended to be a dive site but a lot of panels are already showing large rust holes.

Back to the surface and a light lunch on the dive boat. I felt like the rank amateur today as the three guys with me had qualifications as a dive master, an instructor and a rescue diver. Combined they had over 2500 dives and I have a measly 40-50. I kept up which was my main aim and it was a nice change from the barrier reef dive where if you remember the instructor got us lost.

The second dive covered the stern of the ship (Look at me getting all nautical). This time we accessed the ship near the back and swam through the inside of the ship for about 50-60 metres. This was amazing. You know the narrow passageways you always see on movies about warships, that is how narrow the passageway was - barely wide enough for one person. It was good where the extra access panels had been cut as they allowed in some light but where they hadn’t you only had a torch beam to follow.

The unusual thing was rather than sailors walking through the corridors you had schools of fish swimming towards you. As you looked into each of the rooms there were various schools of fish that had taken up residence in them. Finally swimming out through the former gun turret we were back outside again. A couple more quick swim-throughs of the boiler and funnel shafts and it was time again to head for the two mandatory safety stops and back to the boat.

For divers interested in numbers, both dives were 35 minutes with a max depth of 26m. Viz was 15 M and water temp was 17-18 degrees.

I have to admit I was pretty exhausted and cold by the time I climbed out of the boat so the ride home was mainly concerned with getting dry and warm. Al and the boys met me at the dive shop and we headed to the ice cream shop as a reward for Ev for being a good boy and for Al for allowing me my diving.

We tried one winery on the way home but after an hour at up to 26 metres, alcohol was the last thing I needed, and neither of us felt like it so we headed home and played on the play ground. No wine was purchased today, please do not faint.

Ev made friends immediately with a four year old English girl and her brother who had arrived during the day. The three of them played on for the rest of the afternoon while Aaron did his best to crawl after them. After the kids were in bed, the parents caught up for a couple of wines, lasting well into the evening.