Perth and Margaret River

Friday, September 26. We arrived in Perth bright and early. After renting a car we headed to the place where our friends, Chuck and Alice, were staying in hopes that they were in the area (we hadn't heard from them since we had arrived in AU and we were hoping to stay with them). Sadly they were not home, so we went ahead and secured our evenings accommodations. Since we had slept in the car the night before, we decided to treat ourselves to a “real” hotel and rented a room at the Crown Plaza. After so much running around, it felt like a real luxury. After doing laundry (which has become a treat – especially when it is free) we headed out to explore Perth. It was a beautiful day and we grabbed lunch and a pitcher of beer at a local watering hole. After wandering around Perth for a day, Keith and I decided it was definitely a city where we wanted to try and spend a week or so. Keith opted to spend the evening at the local casino (sadly without much luck) and I spent the evening trying to find weekly apartment rentals in Perth (sadly without much luck as well).

Saturday, September 27. After a HUGE breakfast at the hotel, we were back in the car. Since we had rented a car for a few days, we decided to see the sights within driving distance of Perth. Off we headed to the Margaret River area – the wine region of Western Australia. We stopped at a town called Bunbury along the way in hopes of seeing some bottle nose dolphins, but we struck out there (though we did stop at Target to pick up some supplies). Next we stopped at a town called Busselton which has the longest wooden pier in the southern hemisphere (stretching approx. 2 km into the ocean (about 1 1/4 miles). It was quite impressive to see, though we weren't able to walk on much of it due to a huge renovation project. Next we headed to our primary destination, the town of Margaret River. We hadn't booked the evening accommodations and sadly we were told that since it was a long weekend we were SOL. We stopped at a few other hostels/hotels without much luck. It was looking like the day was a wash (we had driven 350 km and had yet to sample any wine) but we tried one last place, right along the beach where as luck would have it, they had one studio apartment available for the night (complete with kitchen, balcony, washer and dryer, etc.). Yeah!! We had a delicious dinner downtown and a beer at the local watering hole and called it a night.