A trip to Margaret River and Cape Leeuwin in South Western Australia...

I had a chance to travel to Cape Leeuwin and Margaret River in South Western Australia. My last few trips to Perth had been so well scheduled smack in the middle of the week, leaving me with little chance to explore Perth and places nearby. This time around, the story was a bit different. It had started to tilt towards a frustrating week at work – totally pointless slogging and needless-endless spinning of the wheel…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Take work offline, this is a travel post – keep it that way! You are at the border of breaching rule-2

… to break the shackles, after a couple of hours of googling for places to see, I eventually did find a place that qualified as a “drive-able” destination – the choice had less to do with the scenery and credentials of the location, but more to do with the mileage that the odometer could clock! I did a rough summing of distances to figure out that a trip to Margaret River from Perth could be ~600km in a day – not extremely challenging, but enough to keep me interested! The other option was to visit a place nearby (~200kms trip) – but that failed to inspire me enough! I managed to book a rental car on Friday.

Friday evening at work was easy. I was out of office at around 7:30 or so. I did a bit of a walking tour of Perth. Perth is actually a lovely place. It is nearing summer time, but the temperate is still in that zone of comfort - near that 15 degrees mark that I relish the most. May be, it was not just the temperature that made the city fabulous. There is this laid-back attitude that engulfs Perth making an ideal place to chill out. Add to that, Perth rates fairly high on my ABR (average-babe-rating) scale – in my recent global benchmark study of ABR scale, Perth figured right up there, largely driven by presence of certain specimen samples that were observed to be a unique blend of hot and cute variety! :-)

Mr. Blog Moderator: Focus…focus…my friend!

It was a rather strange Saturday morning - I was up at 6:30am, while the alarm was set for 6:45am! There is something about these long-drives that does the impossible to me – “waking up early”! Anyways, I went to collect the rental car. I had asked for a Toyota Camry but was provided with another car – at first go, I couldn’t figure out what the model and make was (after googling over the weekend, came to know that the car was “Holden Commodore”) I found my way to the expressway navigating through Perth roads.

30 minutes into the drive, I had seen nothing outside other than the road and occasional stare at the overtaking vehicles. I had still not reached any level of comfort with the car, I was still trying to synchronize my driving to this new strange car – it was packed with power, the accelerator reacted to the slightest hint and intent to get going, but overall, it lacked that air of refinement. It is a huge turn-off for me usually. Add to it the traditional rectangular side rear-view mirrors (as opposed to the curvy ones you find in most modern cars) gave me a feeling of driving one of those classical vintage cars. The car had the look and feel of a Contessa Classic. I continued to drive, with every passing minute, it got better. One hour into the drive, I had got a good gauge of the engine and the transmission system. Having reached some level of comfort with Holden Commodore, I stopped by a petrol station to stock up some coke-light.

Mr. Blog Moderator: Dude, this is a travel post. Why on earth are you talking about cars and driving and stuff? You are again all over the place; this qualifies as breach of rule #2. Official warning served!

I took a bit of de-tour from highway to enter a region of marshy land. It was a lovely drive – the reflection of the nearby hill in the blue waters was a great sight. I figured out there was no one in the vicinity – no other cars, no houses, nothing… I got off the car and took a few clicks, just as I had started to feel good about the place and scenery around, a scary realization flashed passed my mind – there is absolutely no one here! …I remind myself “if I survive this, I could be the next recipient of red and white bravery award!” While that was inspirational, I need a practical doze of logic. So I told myself “hah, it’s all fauna, there is nothing to fear here”. However, my brave front lasted for exactly 15 seconds. I heard some strange sound and got a feeling that something was moving behind the harmless-green-plants! I got back into the car in a flash, locked all doors and allowed the engine to roar! Phew! I actually didn’t care to look back if there was something really out there.

I took a couple of de-tours on the way to Margaret River – but made sure to remain in the car with the seat belt fastened! Nah, I was not scared, but just in case…! :-)

I reached Margaret River by around 1pm or so after having made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to reach the coast-line on the way. Frankly, Margaret River had been a bit of a disappointment. There was nothing great to see there, it was all winery and wine tasting tours. I was driving that day, so there was no way on earth I could have done the wine-tasting tour. Even otherwise, wine is not exactly aligned with my non-psued life! As I looked around, couldn’t find any decent scenery worth an “orkut-pic”. I have a very simple philosophy to travel – “Is this a place that's worth a few orkut-pics, if not, I wasting my time here”!

As hunger took over me, I got to this sandwich place that had service time of infinity. I was lucky enough to be served within first 60 minutes. Post-lunch, I did a of customary souvenir shopping and just when I was about to head back to Perth, I saw a direction-board that read Cape-Leeuwin – further scrutiny of the entangled maps that I was carrying in collaboration with my limited geographical and direction sense revealed that Cape Leeuwin was where Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean met. For the disappointment that Margaret River had been, here was a ray of hope to make this day “bloggable”!

50 kms I probably covered in 30 minutes and I reached the town of Augusta. The next 15 kms were fabulous. The road ran all along the coast that had a hint of hilly terrain to it. I stopped to take a few clicks. White beach, vast blue water, greenish shallow sea near the beach, waves splashing into white rocks, temperature around 15-18 degrees mark, couldn’t get any better than this. It was in all a great sight, worth the struggle that the day otherwise had been.

I drove further down to Cape Leeuwin, took a few pics at the lighthouse. I tried to push myself to the limit, but my lack of imagination couldn’t help me distinguish between Indian and Southern Ocean water colour.

It was about 2:45pm, Perth was 350 kms away and I had to get back to Perth before sunset. In Australia, it is better to avoid night drives as Kangaroos often take over the roads post sunset. I actually didn’t get to see Kangaroos at all. My net research tells me that there are 3-4 times more Kangaroos in Australia than humans (80Mn vs a population of 20Mn). Got back to Perth by 6:30pm, had a couple of hours of sleep before heading to the airport to take the red-eye flight back to Singapore. Overall an enjoyable day, nice drive, good snaps…

Mr. Blog Moderator: Time up! Breach of rule-3… some people just don’t learn!