Wednesday 16 January 2013

An unexpected surprise - and some more wine

I suppose you could call it serendipity.  Which happens to be one of my favourite words.

But I love it when you go somewhere with certain expectations, to find something completely unexpected.  This is what happened when we stayed over night in Perth.  We only wanted somewhere near the airport to bed down for the night, to recover from our overnight flight from Jo'Burg (the seats went flat, but ended up digging into places I didn't know I had), to get over the jet lag and be on our way to Margaret River next morning.

What we found was a lovely B&B in a leafy suburb that looks straight out of neighbours.  Our hostess couldn't have been more friendly and helpful, rushing out to great us with a big smile as soon as we arrived.  She gave us a map of the area, on which I spotted a green area marked Kalamunda Falls National Park.  So we bought a picnic of salmon fillets and salad from the supermarket (which cost the same as a meal out in South Africa), packed a bottle of wine and set off.



Five minutes later, we were sitting in peace and tranquility, toasting our arrival down under with a lovely bottle of LIFE FROM STONE SAUVIGNON BLANC.  This is one of South Africa's finest, which we'd picked up in a supermarket in Franschhoek for the princely sum of £8.00.  It was one of five bottles that we bought over with us.  Why?  Well, a half-decent bottle of sauvignon blanc in Australia will set you back about £20.00.

After our picnic we followed a well marked trail to the waterfall.  And what we found there was a spectacular view, from where we could see right into Perth - and the horizon beyond.  Over which the sun was setting.  So, we stayed and watched it set.


I don't know what it is about the sun setting that makes it such a special experience.  It's like watching paint dry, but in a spectacular fashion; it's about watching something fundamental about our existence, that has been happening since Earth began; it just looks beautiful; it's romantic; or maybe it was the lovely wine we had to go with it . . .

But most of all, it wasn't at all what we'd expected to do in our one night near Perth.



1 comment:

  1. Perth sounds 'awesome' as they say. I would love to visit it someday. When I first visited Australia in 2002 the exchange rate was 2,71aud against £1. We lived like kings. It gets more expensive every visit. Enjoy Hunter Valley and the Blue Mountains. Really enjoying your blog and living it with you. Hope you get to see Ali and Phil while in Sydney. Love Val

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