Margaret River

I’ve had a long day today. Up at 0550 to talk to Gordon and the boys, onto the beach to see the sunrise - very spectacular - and then much pottering about riding, but  unloaded. 

This morning I rode to Busselton, about 15kms down the road and past this white heron just standing about in the river doing nothing in particular. I went to the physio because my arm has been tweaking and I thought I’d better get it looked at before it got too bad. 

She gave me quite a pummelling, but I felt OK and rode down to Margaret River via Vasse where I stopped off at a local farmers market thing. As well as buying an apple Danish and a spinach and goat cheese pasty from a French lady, I discovered that goats cheese usually does not have a smell to it because the billy goats and nanny goats are kept separately. If the billys are allowed to mix with the nannys, their smell gets into the milk and gives the cheese an odour. In fact, they’re only allowed to mix for mating purposes, and then once a year, and if the billy doesn’t do his job, he gets shot and sent off to the curry factory. Sounds like something  that could be very effective in human society.

Margaret River is about 45 kms south of here and I went to collect Shand’s Iphone charger which she’d left at a hotel there. It's quite an odd little place, almost genteel but ever so slightly tatty in that old fashioned way that posh places with old money do. A bit like Henley on Thames or Frinton on Sea, except this is Margaret River, WA.

But in a town just outside it, there were note model cows. I don't know what its all about but somebody clearly had a good idea and milked it (!!) because they're everywhere, just like areal herd. And they are realistic; this dog was really confused and was trying to herd one, but couldn't make out why it didn't move. ( or moo-ve)

A pro surfing championship is in full swing at nearby Prevelly Bay, so I rode onto that and to my delight, was allowed in for free and got a great view of the water where it was all going on. However, as I have no idea abut anything to do with surfing, it took me a while to work out what was going on.  

But I grasped it eventually, and spent about 90 minutes there in the sun, just watching everybody get very excited about people falling off boards in big waves.

They were quite a way out though, so with my little camera, they were dots on the horizon. The waves were dodgy though, so they cut the day short.

After getting back to the hostel, I went and sat on the beach for about an hour. A few people from the hostel were there, and one went in for a snorkell. As he did so, dark shapes started to appear in the water; not sharks, but rays, and they swam alongside him, really close to the shore, completely unconcerned that he was right there in their front room. Lovely graceful creatures, and in the wild.