The Margaret River region is pretty large – we only visited the top half which included the furthersmost western point in Australia, the wine region, and Busselton (summer beach town). When we were on the west coast, it is the furthest I have ever been from Washington DC (or Oklahoma) and literally almost halfway around the world – meaning either direction is the same distance – it was 11,400 miles one direction (via California) and 12,600 miles the other direction (via Europe). Busselton is definitely a summer town and we were there too early, again snorkeling big here but no tours were running and the snorkeling park (manmade reef) had no one in it. But Busselton was OK to base out of for wine tours and drive out to west coast and return to for low key dinners.
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Busselton
Margaret River Wine Tasting
We booked a wine tour at the last minute at a service called “Wine for Dudes” – which had all women employees. Standard visiting wineries and doing tastings – what was a little different is that most of the wineries here are higher end and that is by design. In the 1970s, the Western Australia did significant research into the types of varietals that would grow best here and similar regions from a weather perspective and this aligned with Southern France, so it was intentional to focus on similar grapes as Southern France with a focus on premium wines. So – the Margaret River region produces about 20% of the premium wines exported from Australia, but only about 5% of the overall wine. One interesting place provided 2 different wines and you blended into multiple versions of the same wine to taste/test.
Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park – Hike to Furthest Western Point in Australia
We spent an evening hiking along the trail that led to the furthest western point in Australia, we could see it but didn’t get there. Another spectacular sunset and like most places in Australia – completely by yourself.
On an administrative note, we rented a car and end up with a “Chery” – worse car ever. A lot of features which would work against you – like automatically putting on parking brake when shifted from reverse to drive. From Washington DC – as far away as you can get on land
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