THE BIG DASH: Poor bastards

We’ve doubled back a couple of times on this trip, and each time it’s worked out well.

This time it was to head back to Margaret River and spend a few unexpected days with our daughter Emma, who decided our time together in Exmouth hadn’t been enough. I think WA has a new fan!

She flew into Busselton Airport and spent five lovely days with us before flying out again with a bunch of excited Freo supporters the day before the AFL Grand Final.

Poor bastards. The flight back to WA must have been pretty quiet.

Tough towing

After spending the week motoring around the Margaret River region as we toured beaches, wineries, restaurants, a lighthouse, forests and more (life’s tough, hey), Tas – our Kia Tasman X-Pro – was back in work mode as Emma’s flight took off and we – like it – headed inexorably east.

The Spring weather was lovely while we played Margaret River tourists (high teens, low 20s, little or no rain) , but it turned nasty for the next couple of travel days. Grey, very windy, then heavy rain and very cold, maybe 10–12 degrees.

Great days to travel, then! The challenging trip up from Albany to Busselton had nothing on this. Undoubtedly, in terms of grip, visibility and stability, these were the toughest towing conditions we’ve encountered.

Also, the roads in this region have a few bumps, potholes and broken edges.

After months of quite astonishingly high-quality, smooth surfaces, it’s been a bit of a shock. Hey, we’re not talking anything like Victoria-bad, but clearly the tough weather conditions down here play a role.

We also travelled some backroads as we headed east, so poorer surfaces are to be expected. They had their rewards, though, taking us through some lovely forested area and across panoramic ridge-tops before we entered the endless fields of wheat WA is so well known for.

Through it all Tas soldiered on. With more climbing and headwinds, the fuel numbers were pretty high when towing. Consistently over 20L/100km.

Now, with diesel pricing steepling again, we’re bracing ourselves for $3 per litre and more. Great timing with the Nullarbor not far away.

So to this week’s fuel numbers. Worth noting the overall average below includes the commuting time around Margaret River. The final tank for the week was almost all towing and came out at 19.92L/100km.

Litres consumed: 114.56
KM travelled: 760km
Consumption average: 15.074L/100km
$ paid: $327.40 (best price paid: $279.5 per litre)
KM per $: 2.32km (was 2.78km per $ last time)

Bucket list ticking

We came back to Margaret River because it was close to where Emma was flying in and we knew it offered the variety of attractions that would help us have a memorable experience together.

For Jane and I, there was some revisiting done, but also another week here gave us the chance to explore new things as well. It truly is a great place, very highly recommended.

Jane ticked an item off her bucket list when we got the rare chance to climb the 176 steps to the top of Cape Leeuwin lighthouse.

This is where the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean currents meet, and the views are spectacular from ground level, let alone 39m up.

According to our guide Bruce (good name that) Cape Leeuwin is the furthest point in earth from the US capital Washington DC.

That alone makes it a great place!

We also swam at Hamelin Bay and walked Gracetown (again). But the highlight was watching the whales leap and splash at sunset off Surfers Point (Prevelly).

What a show they put on for us.

Wineries? We sampled quite a few! Cape Mentelle, Xanadu, Leeuwin Estate, Voyager Estate, Hamelin Bay Wines (a return visit) and Vasse Felix among them.

All were enjoyable. But two stood out.

Hamelin Bay is small, hidden away in a beautiful valley and dished up a gigantic cheese platter for lunch.

We enjoyed a superb meal on the balcony of Vasse Felix. A bit of an extravagance, but it was a special experience celebrating our time with Emma.

The porous limestone soil that makes Margaret River a great wine-producing area also means there are large and spectacular caves.

A series of them are open to the public along Caves Rd (appropriate name), and we went to Mammoth Cave. Huge caverns, stalactites hanging down, stalagmites pointing up and even pre-historic bones embedded in the limestone.

Motorhome vs caravan

We’ve noticed lots of motorhomes (or RVs – recreational vehicles) on the road this trip. Most of them are rentals, with people driving from Darwin to Perth or vice versa.

But we’ve also met plenty of people who own them and swear by them, preferring them to towing a caravan.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get into trouble though, as we observed at the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse.

This is the same place where a bus reversed into Tas a few weeks ago. It’s an odd, triangular shape, with cars parked in the centre and on the perimeter, making it all a bit awkward.

More than that for one poor motorhome driver. The sound of scraping metal greeted us as we returned to the carpark from a walk as the right side of his van reshaped the left side of the Subaru Forester parked next to it.

What a horrendous noise compacting metal is!

Once contact was made, the RV driver had no choice but to inflict more damage before being able to pull clear.

Even then, there was nowhere to go because another van had effectively blocked the errant motorhome in.

Watching all this made me recast my opinion of an RV-driving couple Jane and I had seen in Albany. They’d parked their vehicle across four spaces, with one wheel in each.

I’d thought it was careless, but it was actually very smart, guaranteeing the space to manouevre when leaving.

Don't be fooled by the price

There’s no doubt the quality of caravan parks varies enormously, and it’s not always price that gives you a guide to what’s good and bad.

Independent reviews like WikiCamps help, but it all gets a bit confusing when one person praises a caravan park for its large and accessible sites, clean amenities and friendly staff, then the next reviewer says the opposite.

That makes it all a bit of a crap shoot.

The Margaret River Tourist Park we stayed at while spending time with Emma could have fallen into either camp, depending on your experience. We chose to go back there because of its central location to town and we knew there were sites big enough to accommodate the van

But a couple that checked in just ahead of us with a motorhome – towing a trailer, no less! – had a dreadful time getting onto their small site.

While they laboured to figure out what to do and blocked us from parking up, I went back to the office and asked for another site so we could get on with our day.

The very nice young lady behind the desk was happy to oblige. We got a bigger site and one easier to reverse into. Always important for me.

So a thumbs up. Human beings make all the difference.

Anyway, more caravan park sites to be inspected and more reversing challenges to be met in the coming week...