After our visit to Perth and Fremantle, we drove down the coast to Dunsborough, a beach resort town popular with Perth residents. Unfortunately, it was a bit cold to do much at the beach other than look. The kids were a little disappointed — to make it up to them we went wine tasting – yeah!

Margaret River is the wine region in Western Australia and, despite our less than delighted offspring, we managed to visit several, absolutely stunning wineries — and, the wine was fantastic! Although, to be completely honest, my opinion may be a bit unreliable since, all  I’ve been drinking lately is wine from Bali (yep, they actually make wine in Bali!). This probably gives me the credibility of a hobo but, sometimes you just have to make the best of things! The other option is the alcohol they make locally called Arak which, in some cases, can make you go blind so…wine for me!

For our last two nights we decided to book a farm-stay which are popular with families vacationing in Australia and New Zealand. Farm stays began as a way for farmers to make a little extra money and for city folk to see animals up close and experience authentic farm life. I would guess in the early days farm stays were on real working farms and guests got to help out with actual chores. Not so much anymore. These days the focus is more on the guest part than the actual working farm part. So, while I had visions of Rachel Ward on Drogheda – the reality is closer to a slumber party in the middle of a giant petting zoo. Fortunately, the kids didn’t seem to notice and had lots of fun.

It was a great trip! We even managed to bring a few extra bottles of wine home in our suitcases. I was a little nervous when our suitcases went through the x-ray machine at customs and the agent was looking at the screen – but, he didn’t even notice the extra bottles in any of our four suitcases! Granted it is Bali so, there’s a distinct possibility that the x-ray machine was hooked up to a camera in the parking lot or pointed at someone’s shoe but, I choose to think the gods have taken pity on me and knew I couldn’t risk blindness anymore. Either way, a nice welcome back!