Margaret River

I know, I know - it's been AGES since I last gave you all an update. Now, not to make excuses, but literally the day I returned from Perth, Jenny arrived and after she left, I was in go-mode to tell The Chocolate Box I was leaving, followed by finding and training a replacement. And on top of that, my laptop has now run out of memory, so there have been many frustrating nights of attempting to download my pictures to share with you all. I'm still working on getting all of them - it might just take a while longer. I now have 3 days off before I start my new job as a consultant at Accenture! I could not be more excited, and even more so, hopefully have some great stories to tell. I will try my hardest to catch you all up to date before my first day!

First things first, there is a quaint little coffee shop by my house that puts out a chalk board easel every morning with a quote written on it. This morning on my trek to the CBD (there seems to be so many errands to run when you finally have a day off work - all the little things that compile and seem to just get pushed to the back burner), the easel stood out on the sidewalk bearing the quote,

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."

This put a huge smile on my face as not only is it a simple reminder for my everyday ventures, but also for my time in Australia as a whole and the beginning of this new journey with Accenture.

And now just to back-track a bit, I take you to December 26th:

The day after Christmas, Adam, Bec, Emily and I piled into "Ole Blue" (Adam and Em's car which they bought 2 years ago for $1,000 and used to drive from Adelaide in South Australia all the way to Perth in WA - picture the distance of New Orleans to LA). The lack of air con, missing door handles and peculiar smell of the interior were just a few of the charming characteristics of Ole Blue.) We headed 3 hours South from Perth to the Margaret River wine region with all windows down and Dave Matthews band blaring from the radio speakers. Before we left, we had hired a campsite not far from the vineyards to spend the next couple of nights. When pulling into Gracetown Caravan Park, I don't know what I was expecting from an Australian campsite, but the last thing I had in mind was an exact replica of every red-neck trailer park found in the likes of Alabama and South Georgia. Weaving through a maze of satellite dishes, generators, clothes lines and camper awnings strung with Christmas lights, we finally found space 82 after nearly plowing over a group of young boys playing catch and hitting a few dead ends.



We set up our tent and piled in the few duvets and pillows we brought, (Adam immediately decided to sleep in the car since the three of us girls barely fit into the tent as it was), and set out to explore Gracetown. According to the website, this was supposed to be the TOP rated caravan park in Margaret River, complete with all the bells and whistles. I must admit, for a campsite - it was pretty impressive to have, for our use, a large and extremely clean wash house, an outdoor movie screening area and a cooking gazebo stocked with grills, cook tops and a double-wide-size industrial refrigerator to store groceries.

Waiting patiently for a grill to open up, we played card games and had an exciting round of people watching, adding to our perception of the WA "bogan." The stereotype we had heard of and then witnessed first hand on Christmas Day was verified and added to with the colorful and in some cases, confusing, array of people surrounding us. There was the duo of middle-aged Australian men with a Eastern European women who did not speak a bit of English. In the other corner, manning our prized grill, was the dad of 5 sporting a shaved head with a rats-tail gliding down to his lower back. At the picnic bench across from us was the signature Asian family from the grand-parents down to every last Aunt, Uncle and cousin enjoying a nice dinner of...spaghetti? Last but not least was the single mom in cut off jean shorts chasing her son (quite a whiz on his Spiderman tricycle) around the gazebo. Trying to remember not to stare, our turn finally arrived at the grill and after filling our bellies, we decided to venture out of the park to the nearest "town."

The town consisted of one main street boasting about 5 stores total (one of which was a chain coffee shop and the other a local pub.) We decided upon the bustle of the local pub and upon entering, realized this was THE-place-to-be on a Thursday. It was Karaoke night! Settling into a front row seat, we proceeded to have a couple hours of highly enjoyable entertainment from not only the solo performances from the Karaoke host himself (during the down times when no one else wanted to brave the stage), to a local girl who was a regular performer on these such Thursdays, and the saving grace of a huge group of Irish (always leave it to the Irish to bring the party to a place.) After absorbing as much as we could from the performances, we decided to head back to settle in for the (cold) night.

Waking up sweating the next morning (I slept in two pairs of socks, jeans and sweatpants and 4 layers of shirts), we quickly changed into biking gear (remind you, I still was sporting my walking cast/"boot" at this point) - and headed back into "town" for our Sip 'n' Cycle tour of the Margaret River wine country. Pulling up next to a van wrapped in obnoxiously loud "Dirty Tours" artwork, we saw our fate: 4 mountain bikes complete with a water bottle (which didn't stay cold for long), our tour guide, and a loud-mouth local who grew up in M.R. and had worked at a couple of the vineyards we were soon to visit. After finally mounting my bike and making a couple quick loops around the parking lot, I felt comfortable enough to hit the road. I was actually surprised to find biking not as difficult as I had expected (and feared)!

We biked for a total of 30k that day to a total of 4 different wineries. It had to have been at least 100 degrees, and with heat comes 1. dehydration and 2. Flies! Now, I'm not talking about pesky house flies, I am talking about monstrous "March Flies" that look for any warm, wet landing place - and what better a place to land than a biker with sweat dripping down their face, mouths hanging open in exhaustion. It was absolutely disgusting not to mention annoying beyond belief! There were moments when I wanted to throw in the towel, give up, leave my bike abandoned on the side of the road and hitch-hike back to the town. However, this was the most exercise I had performed in months and it felt good! Our reward at the end of each stretch of road was the sweet taste of WA's famous Cab Sauv. The last boutique vineyard we visited was Stella Bella, where our tour guide worked part time. She had a spread of anti-pasta and bread for us to feast on after our journey. As frustrated as I was at times, the overall experience was fantastic. We met hilarious cellar door workers, a middle-aged man also sporting a walking cast (who wanted to stop to ask my entire life story) and received some excellent discounts on great bottles of wine (which I am currently aging at the apartment until I find some special occasion to drink them!)

We headed back to the campsite for a rest and re-hydration. That evening, we joined about 100 of our closest 5-12 year old neighbors in watching Cars 2 on the large movie screen set up in the middle of the camp; and then it was lights out for our early drive home the next morning.

It was quite the adventure to say the least and of course, always is a great story to tell.