Easy Day

More glorious beaches all along the way North
[Kyle]Since we had driven so much further north than planned the day before, we ended up with a nice, short day as a result.

I actually slept pretty well on the clover covered sand ground. The Monkey Bird got us up and we went for a walk through the camp. We were able to get nice and close to a few groggy kangaroos. They didn’t let us pet them or anything, but at least we got to see something other than their blurry backsides as they dove into the bush. I suppose it helps not to have a big noisy metal thing with us.


Lake Clifton and its Thrombolites
We made a few brief stops along the way into Perth of interest. One was at a lake to look at some thrombolites (Modern day examples of a 600 million year old species - basically a colony of microorganisms giving a good impression of a rock). They don’t look like much, but 600 million years got them our respect.

The other was that we finally got to a winery. The one where we stopped, Stakehill Estate, was not by any means the fanciest one we saw, but it was convenient as it was only a couple of kilometres off the main road. It looked less like a vineyard and more like somebody’s house with a big lot and some vines in the yard. When we pulled up, I was already rehearsing my polite decline of their attempt to sell me their rough wine.


StakeHill Winery - one of 1000's to chose from
It turned out to have been necessary. We bought a wine tasting of five varieties, all of which are produced entirely on site. The woman offering us the tasting wasn’t being too rigid about the number and I think we ended up trying seven. They had everything from traditional wines like Shiraz, Merlot, and Chenin Blanc to several tasty fruit wines (fig, rhubarb, etc) and even a few chilli wines. They were all just delicious. In fact, they were better than most wines I’ve had. We ended up wanting a bottle of each but since we only had so much space and time to drink it, we ended up with a bottle of fig wine and one called Chilli Supreme. I know chilli sounds like it would be a weird wine, but it is marvellous. It starts off really sweet and has just a slight bite of an aftertaste. We are really looking forward to an occasion to open that one. We’ll have to do it before we leave as there is no room in our packs.

Back in Perth for the night, we decided to treat ourselves and get a hotel with showers, laundry, real beds, a meal out, and, most important, Wifi!