Food - Travels with Verne and Roy

WA Road Trip: Part Five – Margaret River Vintage Wine Tour

We had two good reasons for booking a full-day tour: Roy was sick up and fed of driving, and I was sorrowful about having been driven past so many vineyards without stopping at a single cellar door.

Glenn, our guide for the day and also the driver of the 13-seater bus, arrived bright and early at our motel on a cloudy, cool morning that blossomed into the most perfect blue-sky day. And, with a total of nine stops between the 10am hotel pickup and 5.30pm drop-off times, our $115 each (including lunch) was good value.

Roy, happily positioned at the passenger door after five long days at the wheel

WA Road Trip: Part Four – Margaret River

Having travelled west from Albany along the southern coast of West Australia for about three-and-a-half hours, we decided (or, to be more specific, I requested fervently and Roy capitulated) to turn left and south to Augusta*, rather than right to Margaret River. Our destination? Cape Leeuwin, a spectacular spot with a lofty and photogenic lighthouse that dates from 1895.

* You can stop in Augusta for a coffee at the Deckchair (or Café Deckchair Gourmet), as we did, but be warned that if you order only one it might cost you $6 instead of the listed $5 price. That’s what happened to Roy. I needed to check my email, you see, but I was already jittery-full of coffee, and the minimum order for Wi-Fi access was $6. I suppose they’re sick of tapwater-sipping backpackers occupying prime chair-space…

WA Road Trip: Part Three – Hyden to Albany

Both Albany and neighbouring Denmark (50-odd kilometres to the west) feature picturesque bay after halcyonic headland after idyllic, white-sand beach, with one magnificent vista after another. We’d hardly driven into town before I’d resolved to come back here one day for a longer stay.

How completely different this coast was from the countryside we’d travelled through for four hours to get here, following the route through country towns Kulin, Lake Grace, Dumbleyung (watch out for the Dumbleyung Dunny!) and Katanning to the Chester Pass Road.

Christmas in Perth

Of course, Christmas is all about celebrating family. (Unless you happen to be a Christian, in which case it might be about celebrating something else.)

So here I am with Roy, appropriately ensconced in the bosom of our family for the next month and more. We have our own self-contained guest suite – sounds a bit better than granny-flat, doesn’t it? – in the house of son Carl and his wife Carrie in Iluka, 30km north of central Perth, Western Australia.

Plenty. Durban has quite enough to keep me busy, and that’s the truth.

By comparison to my home town, Singapore is a major world city that offers just about every entertainment you could possibly think of – everything from world-class concerts and exhibitions to international sports events and more. New restaurants of every level and description, from hawker stalls where a meal costs around US$3 to global celebrity chef restaurants where you’ll easily pay $200 or even $300 a head. So, after our nearly 16 years in this amazing metropolis, am I missing all that? No, not really.

The 5-star Oyster Box in Umhlanga Rockshas a selection of more-or-less fancy restaurants, including the Lighthouse Bar – and no, it’s not actually in the lighthouse itself

KZN Midlands Meander – Road Trip for Three

Durban’s not just about sun and surf – it’s also less than a two-hour drive from an agricultural hinterland that bristles with dozens of more-or-less-chi-chi farm stalls, handicrafts and cottage industries, craft breweries, hostelries, spas, cafés and restaurants. This bucolic wonderland is called the Midlands Meander, and what better destination for a couple of nights’ R&R with my sister Dale from London and our mutual BFF Julie?

Craft ales at Rawdon's Hotel, Balgowan - home of Nottingham Road Brewery — At Rawdon’s Hotel, Balgowan – the home of Nottingham Road Brewery

Day One – of pork crackling, dental disasters and craft ales