and a weekend in Margaret River - Day 1

and a weekend in Margaret River - Day 1
Food, wine and beer weekend

A couple of weekends ago I joined a bus full of 18 other women, including my mother who was a the bus driver, for a self guided tour of some wineries and other places in and around Margret River.

I was picked up by a bus half full on Saturday morning and then we zig zagged through some suburbs picking up the rest. We then headed south along the South Western Highway. Our first stop on the trip was the small family run winery, Kotai Golden Grape Wines, in the picturesque town of Harvey. The owner ran us through the wines. I stuck to the whites because my pallet isn't quite ready for the stronger flavour of the reds yet. I am slowly learning to enjoy red wine, but for now, I much prefer a fruity white. Kotai is located just off of the highway and has a beautiful lake on the side of the drive. They also have Shetland ponies and Welsh ponies. The family were nice enough to get two of them out for us to meet and pat. Kotai had a really nice vibe to it and the wines I tasted were pretty delicious.

I learnt that the owners keep white roses at the end of white 

grape vines and red roses at the end of the red ones.

One of the ponies

From here we went down the road to Harvey Cheese, where we tasted some amazing cheeses. I am a lover of soft cheeses and their Haloumi, feta and brie as well as their OMG cheese were all outstanding. I didn't go so far as to taste their blue cheeses but I did give everything else a taste. I also brought some icecream and a truffle before we piled back on the bus to continue our trip southwards.

Harvey Cheese

I think it was some sort of honeycomb flavour.

Our next stop was at Flametree Wines just south of Busselton. The cellar door is in a fairly new building with a large verandah. We did the wine tasting and I brought a bottle 'Blossom' wine as well as some chocolate for that night. There was a nice variety of recipe books, food and gifts for purchase. They also have an option to create your own food platter to enjoy with wine on the verandah.

Cheese platter example

View of the verandah

View from the verandah in the other direction.

From here we headed to Dunsborough to stop for lunch. Myself and two others had lunch at Tealicious House. I knew I'd be eating and drinking a bit so I went for an ice tea and a falafel wrap, trying to be healthy before an onslaught of unhealthy food later. After lunch we met up with the others and hopped back onto the bus and headed to the holiday house we were staying at for the night. We grabbed our beds and rested for a short while before jumping back on the bus and heading out again. I had a little wander around in the bush, checking out the place before we left. The bush was stunning. I miss being so close to the bush. I used to live in a small city which was just minutes away from bush land. I used to also take a lot of bush walks with my dad. I wouldn't mind going back to that lifestyle one day.

Our bush hide away

Our next stop was Bush Shack Brewery. When we arrived in the evening a duo was playing music on the lawn and the day was finally cooling down. We grabbed a table on the verandah and lined up to order some drinks. I, with most of the other girls, chose the tasting paddle. I decided on 3 beers, a pear cider and 2 alcoholic sodas to drink. My favourite of all 6 drinks was the Scream'n Cream'n soda. Imagine a red creaming soda that you could barely notice that is was alcoholic, even though it is 4.5%. We rested here for a while, relaxing after a long day. The music was great and the one of my favourite things about the place was the atmosphere. There are lawn games and a couple of pool tables to use as you enjoy the music and beer.

My tasting paddle.

View of the grounds. There is a nice grass area off to the side.

The next stop was Meelup Beach, a place I used to go to when I was younger for Boxing day lunch with the extended family. We sat around on the grass and some ventured to the water to wade in. As the sun started to set we left for dinner.

Meelup Beach

The sunset in Dunsborough

Dinner was at the Dunsborough Hotel. I ordered the Chicken Parmagania. My eyes are bigger then my stomach, but I still managed to devour the whole thing. I regretted this soon afterwards. It was defiantly too much food.

Dinner

We then headed back to the holiday home to enjoy all of the cheeses, wines and other produce we had collected during the day and to relax and unwind before venturing to even more places the next day.

To be continued...
Love, love Elle.