South West Australia and the Margaret River

Daylight saving? Well, there’s the thing. To have or not to have, that is the question. The time zones are a bit all over the place, to say the least.

During summer the main city times are as follows in relation to Greenwich Meantime: Adelaide +10.5, Brisbane +10, Melbourne +11, Perth +8 and Sydney +11. Add into the mix that Queensland and Western Australia don’t employ daylight saving and it all becomes a bit of a hotch-potch.

No idea why the West doesn’t use it as it gets dark pretty early without it in the evenings and light pretty early in the mornings. On the one hand, though, it helps to cool the nights down quicker, and make socialising more tolerable.

A slightly confusing postscript to this is the time in the New South Wales town of Broken Hill. Whilst the majority of NSW basks in the time zone. GMT +11 hours, not Broken Hill. Oh no, for historic reasons it shares its time zone with South Australia. Got it? I have, sort of, but I am not totally sure.

With that in mind we headed to the south-west of the state. Our temporary headquarters were in a village called Wilyabrup. In a recent census it recorded a population of 193.

The home in which we stayed, owned by my brother’s company, had six bedrooms, a very impressive open plan living area consisting of two lounges, a formal dining room and kitchen. In addition, there was an outstanding outdoor entertainment area complete with barbecue cooking and running water to make the external kitchen complete.

It was situated on a, can’t remember if it was a hundred acre or a hundred hectare, plot, whichever, it was huge. It commanded impressive views over rolling pasture, sheep and cattle in abundance. Not a bad spot for us to spend the next four nights.

If there was one criticism, it was that I couldn’t get the shower to work. Probably down to me rather than the property. I had to use a bath, too time consuming. Not a fan. Unlike most, though, at least it was wide enough to get my shoulders in so I could duck down below the surface.

The main town in the area is Margaret River, named for the watercourse it stands upon, population 8,441. Not massive but very presentable, I liked it. Some people up inn Perth call it Markup River, which I think a little unfair, as it didn’t seem anymore expensive than anywhere I have lived.

It has everything you need, and I think if I could live in Australia, in a place of my choosing, it would be here. Other towns in the vicinity include Dunsborough and Busselton. I love the former, the name sounds like it should be plonked on the Suffolk coast, somewhere between Dunwich and Aldeburgh.

I think it is one of the most charming seaside towns I have seen. It doesn’t possess the quaintness of a Cornish or Suffolk fishing village, or the kiss-me-quick feel of a Clacton, a Hunstanton, or a Great Yarmouth. It just came across as delightful.

We strolled north, the Indian Ocean to our left, passing well appointed properties overlooking the beach. Although we couldn’t see them from our vantage point I am confident that they would have boasted swimming pools and other extraordinary outdoor facilities.

Who would want more? I could imagine, one day, getting out of bed, padding out to the elevated terrace, sitting down for a breakfast of tropical fruits washed down with a bottomless pot of coffee, before crossing the road onto the pristine white beach, sand squeaking between your toes, and diving into the glorious blue sea. It looked like heaven.

Head back into the main centre and you have an endless choice of eateries, incorporating some incredible smelling seafood restaurants, wander north along the ocean path and you will come across a boat ramp, the centre for many water sports, and go inland a little and you have some extraordinary trails to match any we have throughout East Anglia. If you ever get as far as Perth you must hire a car and get yourself down here.

Busselton is another matter. It has a bigger feel to it. Rather surprisingly, when we were visiting, there was a cruise ship parked offshore, tendering passengers to the end of the pier.

It was as a consequence of coronavirus, I still don’t think it had been rechristened covid at this juncture. They were disembarking onto the 1,800 metre structure. To be honest, I’m not wholly sure whether it was a pier or a jetty.

I am not sure when a jetty becomes a pier or vice-versa. So, I looked it up. Jetty comes from the French word jetee, meaning thrown. As in thrown out over, it is a construction intended to manage tidal flow and that sort of thing. A pier, on the other hand, seems to be the same but is designed for ships to moor alongside, except in this instance, when the ship in question’s draught was too great.

I have my own interpretation, and I don’t really care what the dictionaries say, how presumptuous is that? I think a pier is more exotic in that it is a construction extending out over the sea with many other attractions built upon it. Maybe it might have a theatre, a bowling alley or a selection of restaurants.

A jetty, in my mind, is the same, except it has none of the aforementioned on it. Rather pompous, I know, but that will do for me.

In truth, the Busselton Pier was somewhere between the two. Apart from a railway line running along its length and a type of sea life centre perched on the end, it had nothing else, it was nothing more than a concrete jetty thrown out over the Indian Ocean.

People had raved about the pier at Busselton and told us that if we do nothing else when we are in the south west we must visit the aquarium. Well, we did. To this day I am not sure what we got out of it.

We queued up for the best part of an hour, numbers bolstered by the passengers from the “Majestic Diamond,” before getting in. We descended into a gloomy observation room looking out into the slightly foggy sea, and all I could see was a few barnacled structural supports and one or two less than impressive fish.

In my view it was not “The Octopus’s Garden” as portrayed by the Beatles. When I mentioned to Jane that I could not make out very much, I know it’s my fault and no blame is to be attached to the exhibition, she confirmed that that was all there was.

We agreed that the next bit might be better and joined the line to be taken down to the next level. You never know, there might be a sunken ship laying on the bottom with mermaids darting in and out of portholes.

The lift could only take a few at a time. When it came to our turn, the excitement built, but, then, to our surprise, the lift ascended rather than descended! We were spat out into the giftshop, our tour was ended, we had joined the wrong queue. Others felt they had been conned and went to ask for readmittance. We decided not to bother, I fear we had had too much excitement for one day. Not sure how more underwhelmed I can be at one time?

Whilst waiting to enter I got chatting to a passenger from the ship who informed me that Busselton had not been on their original itinerary, they had originally been headed for South East Asia, but thanks to the epidemic (I don’t think it was yet a pandemic), those destinations had been closed to visitors.

Fremantle had been full so they were diverted to the south. He was slightly disappointed as he was from Adelaide and had travelled extensively around Australia. It wasn’t, however, what they had signed up for.

I asked him if they would get their money refunded, but he said that was a moot point, discussions were ongoing, but the cruise director maintained that it was beyond the cruise company’s control, which I suppose it was, but he hadn’t booked a cruise to visit towns and cities within his own country, especially his home town, which he expected to be seeing more than his fair share of over the next few weeks.

As we now know, weeks turned into months. I have no idea how the impasse was resolved but I would like to think that the passengers would have been offered vouchers for future trips when life returned back to normal.

One feature of the south-west are the amazing cellar doors. It is said that they range from the rustic and charming through to the elegant and refined, and that, in a nutshell, just about hits the nail on the head.

Most allow the discerning oenophile, there’s your new word for the week, to taste and purchase wine direct from the vineyard. There are also outlets where spirits, such as brandy and gin, beer and cider can be bought direct from the producer. I loved them and, what is more, the journey from vine or tree to glass can’t be any shorter.

One word of advice is to make sure you nominate a driver at the beginning of the day. If you forget, you will find that some of these establishments are pretty remote and not exactly a short hop from the nearest settlement.

Luxury foodstuffs such as cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and chocolate are also available direct from the factory gate through a variation on a theme, providores.

Honestly, you could spend an entire month in this region and not exhaust everything it has to offer. We found one outlet where all the products on sale came off the back of a sheep: sweaters, socks, hats and slippers. Rather sadly, the owner was telling us, when she retired they would be closing down as their children didn’t want to take the business on, more attracted to the allure of Perth.

The land would then be sub-divided into blocks to be sold for housing. I think that is sad. It seems life can be just as hard for rural Australians as it can be for rural Brits. I hope we don’t lose it, but I fear we might. By the way, what do you get if you cross a kangaroo with a sheep? A woolly jumper! Ha-ha-ha!

These establishments do not stop here, some have art galleries or small theatres and, in case you are wondering how you can enjoy everything they have to offer, some are building their own villas on site, so not only can you just try a bit of wine tasting, you can stay the night and eat in some of the splendid restaurants. I don’t think it can only be me who thinks this, but it doesn’t half remind me of rural Italy.

The beauty about designing a country using a blank canvas, especially one the size of Australia, is that you have plenty of room to start. The town planners can take into account all of the requirements of modern living: motorised vehicles, electrical supply, gas supply, drainage, communications and socialising.

Margaret River’s town planning was, therefore, first class. There were big, wide arterial roads, plentiful car parking, spacious pavements and sidewalks, cycle lanes, and plenty of room for café owners to pop a few tables and chairs outside their establishments for those all-important after work drinks. I liked it. Shopping was easy, restaurants and eateries were plentiful and shade was in abundance.

Some of the nation’s older cities, mainly Sydney, do have their more constricted areas, where it was envisaged that nothing more than horses and carts would be navigating the streets, so, like many towns in the old country the invention of the motor car presented a challenge. It was only right that they left these areas as they were, it gives us all a feel of what the layouts were like right from the get-go.

The town of Margaret River is a few kilometres inland from the mouth of the river for which it is named. We parked up a few klicks from the point where the river meets the sea and wandered north. Put a few Poms on a terrace outside a coffeeshop and you can create all sorts of mayhem.

There was a surfer spotted a few hundred metres out in the Indian Ocean, and all of a sudden a scream went up. An Englishwoman, with the best of intent it has to be added, was pointing at the surfer who was under attack from three sharks.

For a moment people were terrified. I’m not quite sure why, if you hop into the sea anywhere around Australia you take your life into your own hands. Don’t come running to me should you get in trouble because I ain’t coming to help.

A few others looked around at the hysteric Pom and simply shook their heads. She was askance at the lack of care. She only got back in her buggy when it was pointed out that they were dolphins and not sharks. All’s well that ends well!

After coffee, and probably a piece of cake, the journal makes no reference to such a treat, but I think it extremely unlikely I would have taken part in coffee on its own, coffee is never complete without cake, we joined the coastal path heading north from Gnurabup.

It was a wonderfully constructed footpath extending right to the river mouth. I know this sounds peculiar but it was just like it had been drawn on a map. It consisted of sandy beaches on the south and north banks and was such a sharp delineation you imagined you had fallen straight onto the map itself.

The sea was blue, the sand was white and the land beyond was green. There was a sandbar across the entrance which formed a bit of a natural dam across the water course. It created a natural lido where kayakers and canoers were paddling away to their hearts’ contents. It was such a blissful scene it appeared unreal, maybe even surreal. I love this area.

One last thing before I say goodbye this week. Jane and I come from a small island in Essex called Mersea, pronounced the same way as Liverpool’s river, Mersey. Never before had I come across anywhere else with this name.

Just down the road a bit from Margaret River is a forest that shares this handle. It is with much regret that I have to tell you that we never actually got there. One day we will return and Mersea Forest will be top of the agenda.