Roadtrip: Days 10-12

Tuesday morning was murky; overcast and chilly ("a bit fresh" as Aussies say). I was up early to chat with Mom and Dad and then we stayed at the Airbnb til checkout at 10. From there we headed to the Margaret River Bakery. The food there was beautiful and the set up so homey; random couches scattered about, re-purposed wooden boxes as side tables, and most of the seating was in a windowed-in porch area so the light and airflow were perfect for a leisurely meal. I had some roasted mushrooms with fresh-baked sourdough toast and avocado and it was SO good. After brekky we hit to road south to Augusta. It was really blowy (windy) all day, but we made some stops to admire the views:

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse

We spent the afternoon strolling around town and checking out little shops, but everything in Augusta closes pretty early. Small town life. So we grabbed some takeaway food from a little grocery store and went to eat our spaghetti with sunset views:

Sunset in Augusta, where the Indian and Southern Oceans converge

Back to the Airbnb and an early night to bed - driving and having fun is exhausting! Next morning we decided to head back north. It was even murkier Wednesday than it was on Tuesday - rainy and cold and windy - so our stop in Hamelin Bay to try and check out the resident sting rays (Weronika just couldn't remember their name so she just stuck with calling them "flat fish") was unsuccessful. We were there for maybe 30 minutes getting sand blasted and decided that maybe heading back into Margs and posting up at a cafe for the afternoon would be a good idea. So that's what we did! Back to the Margaret River Bakery.

While we were hanging at the bakery we called around to make reservations for a food and wine pairing meal that Nat had recommended at Hay Shed Hill Winery. The restaurant is called Rustico and they do a fixed price 5-course meal for lunch every day. So we booked ourselves in for that at 3pm and called it an early dinner. And man, what an early dinner it was. The food was so clearly made with such love and care - this was food art, not just food to sustain the body. Our menu consisted of:

Course 1: 

Abrolhos Island Scallops (the Abrolhos Islands are about halfway between Perth and Exmouth on the coast) with cauliflower cream and candied jamon (I have no idea what jamon is, even after eating it) 

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Fried Goats Cheese with orange blossom honey

Course 2: Tempura Prawns (they don't call them shrimp here, despite Outback Steakhouse misleading us for years with their "shrimp on the barbie" commercials, they're prawns) with an avocado tomato salsa and chipotle aioli

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Crumbed Eggplant with confit garlic and romesco (no idea what that is either)

Course 3: Roast Pork Belly with burnt apple jus

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Pear Rocket (they call arugula rocket) Parmesan salad with candied walnuts, and mustard dressing

Course 4: Braised Beef Cheek with red wine, cauliflower and beetroot chutney

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Roasted mushrooms in a sweet sherry cream sauce with sourdough toast

At this point we were full to our gills. The waitress took pity on us and offered to box up the 5th course for takeaway, bless her. So we took our lovely final bites to our next Airbnb in Dunsborough. We got checked in and immediately headed out to try and catch the sunset because we hadn't gotten a really spectacular one. The Augusta one was beautiful but it fizzled out when the colors would have been the most dramatic because of a low cloud bank. So we were really hoping for a good one. And let me just tell you, Torpedo Rocks did not disappoint:

Epic. Back to the Airbnb for our final course and a Sean Connery James Bond marathon. I managed to stay up til 11 on Wednesday because of the Bond movie, so we happily slept in on Thursday, our final day on the road.

Course 5: Dessert Pair of chocolate torte and Lemon meringue 

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Cheese Board with bread, lavosh, quince, fruit, and blue, soft, and hard cheeses

Zero, one of our Airbnb hosts

Our Airbnb, with veranda for morning tea

Thursday morning was every bit as lovely, warm and sunny as the previous two days had been chilly, wet and rainy. We had decided to head back to Perth Thursday afternoon rather than get up early Friday for Weronika to get back in time for her evening shift. So we were excited to spend the last day exploring the beaches near Dunsborough that she had on her to-see list: Sugarloaf Rock, Eagle Bay, and Castle Rock Beach. As we were driving we also popped into Bunker Bay and its adjoining Shelley Cove and loved those, too!

Sugarloaf Rock, in Yallingup

Splendid Blue Fairy Wren! She was so vibrant, the photo doesn't do her plumage justice

Shelley Cove

By around 4pm we were ready to get a move on so we stopped in Dunsborough for some pies, some tea, and got rolling. We made good time getting to Perth and were welcomed back by this sunset:

Perth skyline over the Swan River

So the roadtrip was a raging success, Weronika didn't kill me, and I still had a week of vacation to go!