Southwest Western Australia

I flew down from Sydney to Perth to see another friend of mine, Nicole. She lives down there with her Ozzie boyfriend and her newly-born baby girl, Annabella. I had not seen her for over 8 months, so was quite excited to see her again.

The journey by plane was a bit cumbersome as my initial direct flight was changed into a stop-over in Melbourne. It meant a very early start of the day as well. We left with quite a delay due to high winds and arrived in Melbourne right on the moment my connecting flight left. Luckily, there was another flight later that day, so we all (all passengers connecting to Perth) got transfered onto that one. While waiting at the airport, I wanted something to eat and went down to the Boost Juice bar store. They have some excellent fruit juices and smoothies, but don’t take the Mediterranean pasta salad! It was absolutely tasteless and I ended up getting my money back for it.

Anyway, the flight to Perth was smooth and easy although quite long. I truly experienced the vastness of this country which is huge! Perth was nice warm and sunny and I got a taxi into town for picking up my rental car. I had decided to rent a car, so it would be easy to get to Nicole’s town and also for mobility the following days and checking out the region. After all, it is wine country were she lives. The rent is quite low (only AU$ 30 = appr. E 18) with unlimited milage and a good car too; new Toyota Corolla automatic, really good! Should you be in Oz and want to rent a car, check out www.nobirds.com.au. They are really good and cheap! (No I don’t get any commission…)

I made my way to the village of Dunsborough, all the way in the southwest corner of Western Australia and as such Australia. The countryside looks a bit like country side in some states of the USA, should you have been there, for comparison. Long roads, with hilly countryside, life stock grazing, trees here and there, quite nice.

I arrived early evening at their home and got a warm welcome. It was really good to see her again and obviously the little ‘kabouter’, who is absolutely adorable. Nicole is really happy with her ‘little one’ and discovered that she really loves motherhood. More on that can be found on her own blog.

Autumn has arrived to this part of the world - weird to move straight from spring (okay, only limited on a tropical island as Koh Tao) to autumn. This part of Oz has got very much like a Mediterranean climate. Very enjoyable, with only few days really hot or cold, also due to its closeness to the Ocean. The beach is within walking distance of where they live and we went to check it out. There are no dunes, just hills running into a rocky or beach area. As it is low season, very few people are there, although I am told that even during the high season it does not get a lot of crowds. The water is around 20 C, so too cold to really swim in it. I did book a dive trip to a local wreck which is the biggest wreck of the Southern hemisphere with a length over 112 meters and height of over 20 meters. It is a former naval ship and sunk purposely to form an artificial reef. It is also a marine-protected area, so I am keen to see that too. Luckily the dive shop rents out 7 mm wetsuits, so I should be less cold than during the dives in Sydney. Unfortunately, my initial booking was cancelled due to insufficient number of customers. I am now booked for Wednesday. I saw that 3 other people have booked as well, so the number of people is fine (minimum of 3 required). However, the wind has picked up and that could prevent us going out, e.g. tomorrow will have the strongest winds, so it would not have been possible then. Let’s hope for the best and see.

I am planning to go back to Perth on Thursday. I want to check out the city, see Freemantle as well, and possibly do some diving at Rottnest Island right off the coast. More on that hopefully later.

The last couple of days, I chilled out down here and we went to the beach and forest, both magnificent places. Places are virtually empty with no man-made sounds to be heard. If you want to wind down and enjoy some great nature, this is definitively an interesting area to go to, should you be in the area. They also have Spas around, so you could take the more intense relaxation option as well. ;-)

Today I did a tour of the region by car. I drove down all the way to the south-side, the absolute Southwestern Side of Oz, Cape Leeuwin. The whole region is an absolute heaven for wine and other produce lovers. Numerous vineyards with daily free tastings can be found all over the region. And some of these wines are truly superb! I can now understand why the French have been worried about competition and this region is not the only wine producing region of Oz… They also have cheese (was okay) and chocolate factories and also some olive oil producers, which is very tasty too. All in all, a very nice, but tiring day!

As said, soon I will be heading north and I am thinking of driving all the way up, using a rental van. More on that later!

See’ya!