Margaret River

We went down to the Margaret River region in January with our friends and their children for a 3 days trip. It's our first time down there and I've always wanted to go down to try the wineries there. We've been to the Swan Valley and Hunter before but never down to the Margaret region.

We set off really early, at around 7 am from our friend's place at Applecross and our first stop was Busselton where we visited the famous Bussleton Jetty. It's supposed to be the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere and I can believe it. It stretches out to sea for about 3 km and at the end of the jetty, there's an underwater observatory which you have to pay to enter of course.

When we arrived there, it was still pretty early and I was wondering why the place was so quiet since it's a famous tourist spot but when we left at around 11 am, the place was getting crowded.

We arrived at the small town of Margaret River after lunch and we checked into our hotel which was the Margaret River resort. I highly recommend it if you go during the off season as it is relatively cheap but luxurious. There were 3 families there and we shared 2 villas among ourselves. In each villa, there's 2 bedrooms and a loft with an extra sofa bed. There's a living room and a kitchen along with it. It's a really great place to stay and use as a base to visit the region and furthermore there's IGA just around the corner. That evening, Jane cooked for us and I've to say that we were really pampered by the food she prepared.

The next day, we set off for Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. Everybody keeps telling us that we have to visit the place when we go down south as that's where the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean meets.


It's definitely worth a visit but unfortunately the lighthouse was closed when we were there and we couldn't go up to visit it.

On the way back, we had lunch at this restaurant called Colour Patch. It's just off the road from Cape Leeuwin back to Margaret River and in front of it, there's a bay which is very interesting. The scenery there is amazing and I don't mind settling there. For an off the beaten track restaurant, the food was really good. I liked the burger that I had and PC had fish and chips with a very different type of batter. The batter had different types of nuts and it definitely made the fish and chips taste really different. Definitely worth a meal there.


Now the interesting thing about the bay is that there are a couple of rays that use that as a sanctuary and they can be found swimming along the shores there. I managed to take some pictures of it and I overheard one of the local kids calling it Barry.

On the way back from Cape Leeuwin, we visited Leeuwin Estate and we managed to sample some wines there although we were too late to attend the tour of the vineyard. I ended up buying a carton of wine which they shipped back to Perth for me.

For dinner, we ended up eating back in Margaret River at a restaurant called Waves Seafood. We were there early but they were kind enough to let us in to wait. There were 2 chefs and we can actually see them cook. The food was good! Usually in these types of places, I won't have too much expectations but I've to say that the standard was beyond what I expected.

On the third day, we left for Perth and stopped by Margaret River Chocolate Factory but I'm not a chocolate lover so it did not hold any interest for me. Unfortunately, my friend's daughter fell ill and we decided to cut short our trip and went back from there.