Western Australia: Margaret River to Denmark

This is roughly the route we took through WA. Since I wasn't the driver, I can't validate each route, but the stop offs and wine regions are about right. We departed Margaret River on Tuesday morning to drive to Denmark, where we would stay in a lodge on a working farm and wine taste in the region. Denmark, and an area called Frankland we tasted at on our last day, are part of the Great Southern Wine Region. I hadn't heard of this before, as my knowledge stopped at knowing that Margaret River was in Southwest Australia, but I assure you, there are more vineyards than you would think!

Today's driving day stop-offs were at the joining of the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean at Cape Leeuwin, a tree top walk in Valley of the Giants and a climb for the boys of the 60 meter tall Gloucester Tree in Walpole.

There wasn't a good picture of the oceans unless we paid for admission, so we liked how this sign told you which ocean was where.

 

 Lorenzo, me and Michelle on the tree top walk. There were walkways 40 meters high and for about 400 meters around the trees. Pretty cool.

Side view of the suspension walk

 Inside a big tree

Brett and Lorenzo climbing the Gloucester Tree.

View from the top of the Gloucester Tree

We arrived late afternoon in the smallish town of Denmark, but before going to the grocery store we wanted to check out our lodging and kitchen amenities. We stayed at a place called Karrak Reach, which was 8km up into the hills with directions such as "when you get to the top of the hill, stop completely before going down the steep grade". We thought, don't try to scare San Franciscans about hills! But sure enough, it could have been pretty dangerous had we not followed the instructions.

Once we finally found our accommodation (pictures to come), it was more spacious and clean that any of the places we had stayed so far. It was essentially a two bedroom, one bathroom trailer with a very large living and dining space in the middle. It overlooked the hills and valleys of the region and shared the property with farm animals such as chickens, turkeys, cows, sheep, and what we think were llamas or alpacas.

 Enjoying the view

The kitchen had a 24 inch stove top and oven (this is rather small, but functional) a few basic pans, and a microwave. Knowing the environment, we headed back into town to get provisions for the next few days of breakfasts, picnic lunches, and dinners.

For those of you who don't know, Lorenzo and I are self-proclaimed foodies and hobbyist chefs, so the task of planning out, shopping for, and preparing meals is enjoyable for us. Brett and Michelle are great shopping, traveling and eating partners because they like nearly everything, and are willing to take care of things like breakfasts, lunches and appetizers while Lorenzo and I ruminate over cuts of meat for dinner, or what vegetables to roast, or what ingredients we could use in more than one meal.

Lorenzo also has a phrase that we all like, which is to shop for/cook/select "what inspires" so we headed into the Denmark IGA (it was a super IGA, which I located because we at first went into the Express IGA and I somewhat cheekily asked "Is this the largest grocery store in town"? and we were directed to the "proper" supermarket). We divided responsibilities, with Lorenzo sourcing ingredients for a beef stew, me sourcing ingredients for lamb chops and side dishes for that night, and Brett and Michelle covering the rest. We had only been in the store 10 minutes when 30% of the lights went off. Uh-oh!

In my experience at bars and stores, this only happens for one of two reasons. 1. There is a power cut, which is more likely in a place like India that WA, 2. It's closing time and you better wrap up, quick! It was only 6pm but I guess that's a suitable closing time for a shire with population just over 5,000. We all scurried around the store, picking up final provisions like milk and laundry detergent without lists or much ability to coordinate and we were out the door laughing and applauding our success to plan and shop for 5 meals in a matter of 15 minutes in a store we have never been to before.

But there was one final detail to take care of: Free rosemary!

 

 Prepping the lamb chops

The evening's meal was a great success: Lamb Chops with red pepper, scallion and mint salsa, roasted corn, and green beans with garlic and butter.

We enjoyed our meal with some blended reds we had from Knotting Hill winery in Margaret River and we ended the evening with a game of homemade Scattergories which became a nightly activity. The next day: wine tasting!