The Grateful Alive; going down south, or even way down south; my semi-apology for gabbiness; Grand Design shed; alien kookaburras… really?; couples of a certain age at Bunbury Farmers Market, Vasse Village; rump cap report-back; friends and neighbours in Marron Rise; Lamont Smith’s Beach for Sunday dinner; lunch at Wise Wine, Eagle Bay; Aravina Wine Estate; curvy Botero with understated genitalia; WA Surf Gallery museum

Talking about gratitude with Roz on Burns Beach last week, she and I agreed that it’s impossible to be grateful and depressed/anxious at the same time. And that we’re very lucky to be living in a wonderful place.

A health podcaster I heard the other day described how she consciously started each day with a gratitude practice, so as to flood her body with the feel-good love hormone, oxytocin. The minute she wakes up, she gives thanks for her pillow, for her comfy mattress, for her Egyptian cotton sheets – and especially for the lusty young man next to her that she brought home from the club last night. (Obviously, I made that last bit up. The rest is a true story.)

Moving on, then, before this becomes a post better suited to my health and longevity blog, Living Long & Strong with Verne and Roy.

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Awe-some Places

Studies also show that our bodies flood with oxytocin when we experience the sensation of awe – as happens when beholding glorious natural scenes like a sunset sky, the sea or a pristine forest. This may be part of why being outdoors is so good for us.

Not only do Roy and I now live in a gorgeous location, just over the road from a deep swathe of coastal vegetation and a magnificent beach, but there are several other differently wonderful places within easy reach of us and central Perth.

Rottnest Island (pictured above) is one; the vineyard-blessed Swan Valley is another; but the jewel may be Margaret River. The Margaret River region combines world-class vineyards with world-class surfing beaches. I’m not sure how common that is around the world, but I’d guess:  not very.

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Down South to Yallingup, Margaret River

When you say you’re going down south, you mean to one of the popular Margaret River holiday destinations: down south to Bunbury or Busselton, down south to Dunsborough, down south to Yallingup, etc.

Less usually, you might be going way down south to Augusta, to Albany or to Esperance. (Unless you’re the Sultans of Swing, in which case it means London Town.)

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Awe-some Friends

Naturally, you also make the love hormone oxytocin when you spend time with close friends … friends like Deb, Blaine, Lynn and Kim. Sharing a meal together – be it at one of the restaurants that Margaret River is known for, or a barbecue on Lynn and Kim’s peaceful terrace surrounded by native bush – is a fabulous way to reconnect.

That said, I would do well to remember that even really good friends aren’t all necessarily on the same page when it comes to politics, current affairs or degrees of wokeness – and so I’m taking this opportunity to apologise (a bit*) for running off at the mouth several times over the course of our three days together.

• Lest we forget, 20 January was the date of the US presidential inauguration, so feelings may have been running unusually high. (Or low, depending on various factors.) Apart from that, I assign some of the blame for my heightened gabbiness to: (a) Blaine’s excellent G&Ts, and (b) Margaret River’s superb wines.

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Rump cap Report

Seduced by the mystique surrounding the beef cut known as rump cap (or picaña, its Argentinian name), we got one at the new Bunbury Farmers Market at Vasse Village, on the way to Yallingup. Plus all the fruit, mostly healthy tidbits, alcohol and more that two couples of a certain age (Roy and me, Blaine and Deb), each of us with his or her decided tastes and minutely specific preferences, might find necessary for three nights in self-catering accommodation. Quite a lot, as it turned out.

The rump cap worked well enough for a barbecue dinner at L&K’s, along with various pates and dips,  salads, broccolini and more. This was Roy’s and my third experience with picaña. (The first was Julie and Jeff Simpson’s sterling effort in November 2024, during three pleasant weeks in Durban that I was eventually too idle to blog about.)

The beef had been marinating for most of the day in lots of good salt, ground pepper and aromatic local olive oil, and I’m pleased to report that it survived apparent incineration almost unscathed. Overall, the meal was delicious and the conversation nearly as fiery as the barbecue. (Entirely my fault, as mentioned above)

 

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Building with Lynn and Kim

Kim and Lynn used to have a medium-sized house surrounded by about five hectares of splendid bush. (See here, here and here for my previous posts about this evocative spot near Yallingup, posted in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.)

It’s no longer a medium sized house, having been transformed into a grand design that is finally nearing completion.

Clearly, the shed was a priority. A priori, one needs to grasp the importance of a substantial shed to a dinkum Aussie man like Kim. Designed for the impressive recreational vehicle that may be on his and Lynn’s horizon, this cathedral-esque structure could easily shelter a double-decker bus. (And if it looks big here, it’s a lot bigger from the inside.)

Also moderately cathedral-esque is how the living-room has been pushed out into the natural forest, incorporating a raised roof extension and plenty of glass. In the warmer months, you can also sit around the love-seat, which was hand-made by Kim himself.

I didn’t see any kangaroos this time, nor a possum – though both do come through from time to time – but I did hear a kookaburra. Did you know that kookaburras are not indigenous to Australia? Apparently, they were imported from PNG. (That’s the island of Papua New Guinea.)**

**Important Update about Kookaburras

Shortly after I published this post, I received a correction from brilliant Brisbanite Shamus Sillar, the gorgeous Group Editor at my previous employer in Singapore, Expat Living. It made me realise how lazy I’d been in simply repeating what I’d heard: the italicised bit in the paragraph above.

Anyway, here’s Shamus’s amusing and erudite correction:

“While I’ve generally been happy enough to let Kiwis take ownership of Russell Crowe (especially in recent years!), I’m not sure I’m ready to give up the kookaburra to the Papuans. So I turned to the internet for answers (doing the kind of research that is intentionally skewed to bring about my preferred result, of course).

“My take on it is that there are five species of kookas, four of which are from PNG – Dacleo rex, Dacelo gaudichaud, Dacelo tyro and Dacelo leachii. The fifth, Dacelo novaeguineae – the famous laughing kookaburra – is from Australia. Of course, it doesn’t help that an 18th-century French plonker mistakenly thought he saw this particular type of kooka in PNG, which is why it ended up with “novaeguineae” appended to its scientific name. But it’s an Aussie nonetheless – and too laughably lazy even to get itself across the ditch to PNG to exist there at all.”

Thanks, Shamus!

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Friends and Neighbours

We didn’t stay with L&K this time – though the tent we stayed in once before would have been perfect now, at the height of summer. Instead, Deb, Blaine, Roy and I hired the neighbouring house, whose owners are based in nearby Nannup. Hippies, apparently – but highly sophisticated hippies, judging from the quality of the finishes and how beautifully equipped the house was.

“Please help yourself to whatever’s in the pantry,” said the charmingly handwritten note on the kitchen counter. What? This is not usual… not in Australia, anyway. More usual are laminated lists of threats advising of perils that might befall any tenant who fails to leave everything exactly as she/he/they found it. (Understandable, but still not pleasant.)

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Two Yallingup Restaurants

Lamont’s Smiths Beach for Sunday dinner

Lamont’s Smiths Beach is one of very few restaurants in the area that serve evening meals at all … let alone on a Sunday night, which the first of our three nights happened to be. In retrospect, the initially unfocused service from our otherwise lovely waitress, who might or might not have been French, was not improved by my speaking French to her (“une bouteille, six verres”: one bottle, six glasses). To be fair, this could have meant something very different in her native Polish, Basque or Hungarian. Go back to your village? Though hospitable, your aunt is a smelly swamp-dweller? How do you rate our artwork?

Roy and I shared the three-cheese galette with basil oil ($20.85), followed by the slow-cooked lamb – a couple of blocks of tasty pulled meat – with green pea pesto, artichoke, buttermilk dressing and mint ($46.50) for me. I can’t remember Roy’s order; neither can he. But I’m fairly sure that Deb enjoyed her fresh snapper with kipfler potatoes, courgette, roast capsicum and pine-nut salsa; and Lynn her tempura-style whiting from Shark Bay (also $46.50). Finally, we shared a couple of Pavlovas ($22.50)… and I was reminded that the cheap supermarket versions of this iconic dessert, good value as they may be, fall far short of this standard.

(It being evening, I didn’t bother with photos .)

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Wise Wine, Eagle Bay for Tuesday lunch

I’ve warned before of the importance of timing your WA getaway, because you can’t assume that anything will be open in the first part of the week. Case in point: Tuesday turned out to be too early in the week for lunch at Clairault Streiker, which would have been our first choice. Instead, Lynn suggested Wise Wine, Eagle Bay.

The previous night chez Lynn and Kim had been a late one, so she booked a table for 2pm, the last possible seating. (That gave us time to visit Aravina Estate (see below), after the mandatory detour to Dunsborough for coffee at Yallingup Coffee Roasting Company, one of Roy’s favouritest places in the whole world.)

Wise Wine is a fairly new restaurant on a wine estate in the beautiful Eagle Bay area, near Dunsborough. I wasn’t expecting it to be so fancy… but in fact, it was named Western Australia’s “best restaurant within a winery” in the  2024 Gold Plate hospitality awards.

This time, our lovely blonde waitress definitely was French. And served us perfectly. Comme il faut.

To start, Roy and I shared the excellent chargrilled Geographe Bay octopus ($26), wasabi kabayaki glaze etc. Then we each ordered the sticky pork belly ($46), kombu glaze, rice cake, leek cream, shrimp crumb and charred kai lan. Deb had the goldband snapper ($48), limeleaf and lemongrass mild red curry sauce, crushed potato and bok choy.

Below, from left to right descending: Kim’s delicious selection of cured meats and more was picked at by everyone, mostly with his kind permission; the octopus; the burrata; and the sticky pork belly.

 

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Aravina Estate in Yallingup, Margaret River

Aravina Estate in Yallingup used to have two museums – one for cars, another for surfing – but currently it’s just the surfing museum. We hear that the previous owner took his toys cars with him when he sold the property to its current owners.

The new owners have immaculately renovated Aravina, which promotes itself as a wedding venue. That’s potentially lucrative business, and no doubt the investment in lush landscaping and masses of huge hydrangeas is paying off.

No car museum – sorry, Roy – but instead a substantial Botero sculpture at the entrance. Columbian artist Fernando Botero (1932-2023) is, of course, known for his unapologetically hefty subjects, often a dancing couple like this one. Maybe it’s there to make today’s curvier brides feel right at home.

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WA Surf Gallery

Renamed WA Surf Gallery and still located just beyond the reception area at Aravina Estate, this is an enthralling collection of photographs, boards and other surfing memorabilia.

The entire Margaret River region is a historical haven for surfing: Kim, who grew up in Perth’s North Beach area, remembers heading south as a teenager to surf all day and camp in the wild.

That sepia photo (bottom left) dates back to 1935, when the boys wore woollen bathers and rode wooden “surf shooters”.

 

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Postlogue: Meelup Beach

Just down the road from Wise Wines is beautiful Meelup Beach and – as the six of us were travelling in two cars – Roy was successfully prevailed upon not only to stop, but to let us get out and feel the beneath our feet.

 

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Up next?

Well, Tommy and his team are busy laying the artificial turf even as I write this: so my next post may just be the final instalment of This is the House that Roy and Verne Built!