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Margaret River Wine Tour - West Australia
Round The World Trip Journal

(20th March) Margaret River - Wine Tour
Margaret River is famous for its wines so we thought it would be rude to miss out on an opportunity to sample a few. We decided to join the Bushtucker Winery Tour. We were picked up from our campsite by a minibus with about 20 people on it and went off round 4 different vineyards. First was Xanadu where we sampled 7 wines which are apparently available from Oddbins in the UK! We purchased a bottle of the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon. Next was Adinfern which was much smaller and used to be a sheep farm – we sampled 6 wines here including a chilled red called Shepherds Harmony – a late autumn Merlot/Cab Sauv mix that is highly drinkable! On to the Brookwood Estate which is a family run boutique winery. We sampled seven wines and selected a Chenin Blanc to have with our lunch served on the veranda here. We had kangaroo, turkey and ham with pesto sauces, houmous, plum chutneys and salads plus a dip that had a witchetty grub in it (see photo) – yuck! Needless to say nobody ate it! By now we were all gently sozzled and the volume in the minibus had increased as we had all got to know each other. Jo was giggling like a silly little girl and getting pinker and pinker with each glass! On to our final vineyard across the road at Tassell Park where we tried 5 wines. By now we were a bit full on wine so next stop was the Margaret River Dairy Company which produces cheese. We purchased a slab of vintage cheddar here. On to the Chocolate Factory where we over-indulged in the free chocolate drops and came out loaded with boxes of mixed chocs, chocolate rabbits and giant freckles (topped with hundreds and thousands!). Don’t ever let us go shopping tipsy again! Finally we hit the Bootleg Brewery which was very welcome after all that wine. I sampled the Sou’west Wheat and Mike had the Wills Pills – both good so we bought a mixed box of all 6 beers they produced including a 7.2% dark coloured Raging Bull. The group photo shows Mikey at the brewery with a couple from Brisbane, a couple from Perth and a couple from Emerald in Queensland. It made a lovely change for us to spend a day with other people since we normally have fleeting exchanges with other travellers before moving on again. The minibus dropped us right back at our pitch and we practically fell out complete with all our purchases. We sat having sundowners eating bread dunked in dhukka (a mix of sesame seeds, cumin, macadamia nuts, coriander and salt) – yummy! Oh and we fed the ducks again! The following day we went to the Voyager vineyard as we had heard it had lovely gardens. It is built in the style of the South African vineyards and had beautiful rose gardens – heavily scented. This is where we sampled our most favourite wine – the Chenin Blanc – should have bought more than one bottle.