Margaret River region

So many wineries, so little time! In fact, the choice of which wineries to visit is made easier by factoring in additional requirements: for the morning visit, there has to be a cafe to provide coffee, and for the early afternoon visit, lunch has to be available. On this basis, we visited Hayshed for a tasting plus coffee, and Cullen for a lunch platter and a little more wine. Hayshed excelled: although we limited ourselves to the reds, there was quite a range and we even tasted their $70 offering! And coffee in the stylish cafe rounded the morning off nicely.

We then headed to Driftwood, but didn't go inside when we saw a sign saying that the restaurant was closed “until further notice”. Pity, because I would have liked to replace the Driftwood cap (obtained some years ago) that I inadvertently left behind in Xian. But it was not to be. So we headed down the road to Cullen, where we had a nice up-market platter for lunch. Cullen are very much into the organic/biodynamic scene; all very commendable, but when plantings are said to be influenced by the zodiac and account is taken of which way the water swirls, I wonder if things are being taken just a little too seriously.

Following this, we checked out Margaret River itself, for a quick look around and a coffee. I can't say that I find this town particularly attractive as it's primarily a service centre.

After freshening up we headed into Busselton for dinner,and ended up eating Indian (which was fine). After dinner we walked part of the way out along the 1.7 km Busselton jetty, taking care not to become entangled in any of the lines being held by the many fishermen.