More Margaret River

Margaret River, January/February 2016

We have been here on the winery with the very lovely and hospitable Jarvis family now for some time. We seemed to be very busy doing nothing, well, Helen not doing much. Richard helping out by driving the tractor, trimming the vines and watering them too.  We had a lovely time at Caitlin’s 18^th birthday party, we had company too in the form of a few tents and one small caravan parking up near to us.

The weather changed for 3 days when, we had a little rain in the middle of the month, it was very welcome and cooled the air down. We had telephone conversations with our friends Glenn and Sue (who live in Queensland) they knew we were planning a trip up to Darwin for the winter and also a trip over the Tasmania, later in the year.

After several and various discussions between us the outcome is we are all booked into a caravan park near Darwin from the 6^th June, Tasmania ferries are booked for the 30^th October and caravan park booked near Hobart for 2 weeks over the Christmas and New Year period. No idea when we will return to the mainland!! Obviously it will be sometime in 2017!

Wednesday January 27th, we left the caravan to head for Perth airport. It’s today that our friends and ex neighbours Andy and Tracy come to visit for a few weeks. This trip has been planned for months and months. It was fantastic to see them again. We were lucky to have been given a 5 night stay at Cottesloe Beach, one of the most famous beaches in the world. Our accommodation was just right and only 50 metres from the sea. Lots of beach time, swimming in the sea, walking and golfing was enjoyed and visits to Kings Park and Fremantle completed our stay.

The pool at Cottesloe Beach apartments

Sunset at Cottesloe

We all packed our belongings and travelled back to the winery in Margaret River, a journey of about 3 hours. We set up a small tent with airbed under the canopy and sufficient bedding to keep warm. Our intention is to stay here for 2 nights and then move to a Bush type park for a few days and then, maybe, move on. Two very pleasant evenings one having dinner with Matt and Jackie were spent at the winery. A great night was had with everyone.

Our journey on the February 3rd was really short approximately 20km to the Big Valley Caravan Park, it’s a working farm. The owners are just lovely and the facilities great with two massive camp kitchens, there are quite a few backpackers mainly French and German, living here whilst they are working or trying to find work. We had agreed on 4 nights here our first night we no one around us, but, then that was it, we had neighbours either side but not close for the next few days. Helen spied a great set of Boule in the main camp kitchen and managed to borrow them and keep at the caravan. We all loved playing Petanque and managed to get a number of games in nearly every day!

We had a few trips out. Andy managed to get two sessions in at the Margaret River golf course, it was a beautiful place with Kangaroos everywhere. It was soon decided that we should stay for another 4 nights. Andy’s second Golf session saw Tracy, Rich and Helen take a drive to Hamlin Bay for a beautiful session on the beach and a viewing, for Tracy and Helen of the massive Stingrays in one area of the beach…These “Rays” were really quite large and swimming close to the water’s edge where they were obviously feeding off the sea weed…..Richard didn’t bother doing the 500metre walk!!

Hamelin Bay

Stingray, stingray!

Tracy

Watershed winery, lunch here!

A view of the vines and lake at Watershed

The four of us opted to go on a Wine Tour, this was advertised in the camp office at $72 per person, cheap as chips. It was a surprisingly, wonderful tour that included a remarkable lunch, with a decent glass of wine it must have been worth $35-40 of anybody’s money (Richard thought this would be a nice trip for our other friends who arrive in March). Our stay here was soon over and with the van packed up and stored back at the winery we headed off up to Perth.

Unfortunately our stay at Big Valley soon came to an end. The next plan and trip was to have three nights north of the city at Jonathan’s place. We would then take Andy and Tracy to the East Perth train station where they will board the famous Indian Pacific train on Sunday morning 14th February, Tracy's birthday too!
The night before we booked a table at Chippys a café that is BYO, where everyone sits outside with a bottle of bubbles watching the sunset. Obviously, we took a bottle and had a very nice plate of fish and chips each.... the sunset was beautiful as usual.

A superb welcome for the passengers on the Indian Pacific was waiting on the platform, white tablecloth tables set up, coffee, tea, orange juice and petit fours. A lone performer playing his guitar and serenading the passengers all added to the experience that was obviously to come…. We so wanted to be on that train…but no, we had to say our farewells and promised to meet up with our lovely friends in a few years’ time…..

During the next two weeks we lived with Jonathan and our Grandson Kyan, Jonathan had agreed to take time off work and have Kyan whilst his mum goes on holiday!!

We wanted to help out just on the off chance that Jon may be called into work. Our job was lots of swimming, in the local sports centres, Kyan was a lot more confident in the water than we had remembered he was quite incredible, the more we visited the swimming pools the better he became. Helen along with her cousin Andrea had organised a family get together at Kings Park and what a beautiful area Andrea chose. We spent over four hours with Helen’s cousins and some of their children, it was marvellous.

We contacted two sets of friends, Penny and Bob and Wendy and John. We arranged to have lunch with Wendy and John and then another lunch a week later with Penny and Bob. I love all these lunches out!!!
We are looking forward to seeing Penny and Bob up in Darwin in June. Penny and I were in the same quiz team last year on the caravan park. Bob and Penny arrived in Bob's Jaguar so obviously photos to show!!! you people who know Woody will understand!

Penny and Helen

Bob, Penny and Jag!

Trying to drape all over the Jag!!

We had a really lovely time up in Perth and are now back ensconced in the caravan where Richard is actually getting up in reasonable time and doing a spot of work for Matt.

Updates to come!!