Margaret River

Our main activity whilst at Perth was actually renting a car and leaving Perth. We set off to a small place South of the city called Margaret River mainly because Mr. Andrew Taberner and his parents were staying down there. We looked into bus ticket prices but instead managed to convince ourselves that renting a car to drive down would be a cheaper and more entertaining option.

The trip down there was mostly uninteresting as the roads were dead straight, wide open, dual carriageways with a speed limit of either 100 or 110kph. It was, however, good to see some of the Australian countryside. The only thing missing were Kangaroos; though we were told to be careful of them the only ones we spotted were lying by the side of the road ever so slightly dead.

 After saying a quick hello to the travelling Taberner family (who were actually staying in a town called Busselton up the road) we carried on to Margaret River, planning to return the next day. We spent the afternoon just relaxing and visiting a few of the beaches before deciding to find a place to sleep for the night. Well I say a place to sleep; we had already decided to sleep in the car but needed a place to park it. After deciding on a car park on the seafront that looked good (conveniently ignoring a sign telling us camping was forbidden) we parked up and started our horrible nights sleep.

At about half past 6 in the morning we were woken by a Western Australian policewoman at the window of the car. Pete had seen her and so had sat up and cleared our food and stuff away to make it look like we hadn’t slept there… unfortunately me lying in a sleeping bag in the drivers seat wasn’t too subtle! Anyway Pete pleaded ignorance and we escaped without the $100 per person fine.

Then next day we made a couple of stops on the way back to Busselton. The first was at a cave called the Jewel cave that was, well, a big cave. After that we went to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory which I have to say is definitely no Cadburys world. It was more a very expensive chocolate shop with a window into the small attached factory. The best bit about it was that they called the workers Umpa-Lumpas… workers who all happened to be Asian.

After the Chocolate factory we went up to Busselton and stopped off at the jetty which is almost 2km long. Once we had walked all the way to the end we set off to meet the Taberners.

After an extremely unsuccessful attempt at fishing (it would have been more accurately described as feeding fish) we had a BBQ in the hotel’s grounds. After our meal our evening was interrupted by several possums coming to check out what we were up to.

When me and Pete finally left it was late and we had to find fuel from somewhere. We tried one place in town that had just closed so we set off to look for another place. Somehow I had forgotten to switch the headlights on for the first 100 meters. As soon as I realised I flicked them on and then noticed the headlights in the rear-view mirror; thank God that wasn't a police car… woooop woooop woooop. FUCK. First time I have ever been pulled over. Luckily they weren’t too bothered, they just breathalysed me and sent us on our way with directions to the nearest petrol station that was still open. After that it was a long boring blast back to Perth, the only interest coming from how confusing and disorientating such perfectly flat, straight, roads can be at night.