The Swan Valley

it as a lovely winter morning on saturday when i got a text from my friend amanda wondering if i was interested in visting the swan valley in the afternoon. being that it was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, i couldn't pass the offer up. we picked up another of her friends in perth, then drove off to the swan valley. i sincerely thought this was going to be a long drive, but turns out it's about 15km out of the city, surprisingly close really.

the swan valley is a lot like south western ontario's wine region. vineyards abound, back roads leading to more vineyards, random shops, tourists, etc. in fact, had it not been for driving on the left and strange aussie street names, i might have forgotten where i was.

driving around the 30km loop of vineyards, we decided to make a few random stops. first, and most importantly, was the margaret river chocolate company. delicious, fancy chocolats, with some "chocolat chip" things in bowls for us to test. unfortunately, it's not like at the hershey factory. you can't actually walk through it. and there is no store with discounted "seconds". instead, it just smelled and tasted yummy. i bought john some dark chocolate (to go with his red wine) and one with chili in it. apparently they're quite good.

our next stop was a bit off of the beaten track. we went to a place called "the maze". it's being renovated so that it's more exciting then it as previously (apparently anyhow). it's a large area that consists of 4-5 mazes, disc golf, mini putt, some animals (more on that in a sec) and a small cafe. we explored the mazes. some where none to fascinating (think "hedge maze" where the hedges were rotting and you could walk through wherever you want) but a few had us stumped for a while. the one that annoyed us the most was bales of hay low to the ground with instructions that say "you can only turn right, no u turn and no walking backwards". it took us a while to figure out, but in the end we made it safe and sound. *phew* a good thing too, cause it was getting dark and it would've sucked to get lost in the maze... ;)

in between a few of the mazes, we flukishly went to find the koalas. turned out that they are only "on display" for a little while at a time, a few times a day because they need to sleep a lot. they only eat eukalyptus leaves and therefore need to sleep to maintain their energy (i'm so educated on them now). luckily, we arrived to the koala area about 5 mins before the next "show". if i hadn't known that the 2 koalas were real, i would never have guessed it. they looked like stuffed animals. but they eventually woke up and man! are they cute. the koala lady even brought the male out for us to pet. they're not quite as soft as you would expect but still cute. and really, all that matters is that i got to pet a koala. (which aren't native to WA) a little bit of education: they are not called koala bears...australia doesn't have any bears, so don't make that mistake. and they are also known as drop bears because they fall out of the trees alot. ha! i would pay good money to see that. or i'll just go to the eastern states and wait near a tree until i see one.we also saw a few peacocks roaming around as well as some kangaroos. but the 'roos were fenced in, so it wasn't quite as cool as when they're in the wild.

we left there and headed off to find a few vineyards. we stopped at 2 of them and enjoyed tasting some wine and eating some cheese and crackers (i use the term enjoy loosely. i, obviously, don't enjoy it. but it was fun anyhow). i bought john a bottle of red (to go with his chocolate) but since he's in exams, i don't know if it was a good purchase yet or not.

our last stop for the day was a distillery. which happened to distill rum. woohoo! the first thing the lady told us when we went in was how it was different from bundaberg (dirty ashtray), thank heavens! we enjoyed a fresh mojito with the superb tasting rum while watching the sun make its way down the sky. as it was starting to get a bit cool, we packed it in and drove back into the city. an enjoyable day, to say the least.

yesterday was much of the same weather and i spent the better part of the day outside weeding and cleaning. amanda and i went down to point walter, which isn't too far from my house and happens to be quite a nice point on the river. we got there in time to enjoy a chai latte on the grass with the sun beating down and then walked out along the large sandbar that heads practically half way into the river. a good way to end the weekend i'd say.

xo