Sunday August 31st to Wednesday Sept 3rd, 2025

Sunday August 31st – we took a small drive to a town near the farm called Cowaramup. It is a small town with not much in it but to make themselves more appealing to tourists they have lots of cow statues all around Main Street for you to take pictures with. The town is only 2 blocks long and has some cute shops and eateries. Since the name is hard to pronounce everyone just calls it “Cow Town”.

We browsed the shops and I bought some handmade soaps and Michelle saw a bird bath that she really liked. It looks like it is made of wood but is made of concrete. We had coffee and hot chocolate at a cafe and then headed on to our lunch reservations at 1pm.

We ate at a waterfront cafe at the junction where a river meets the Indian Ocean. The weather remains cool but in the direct sun it is very nice and no jacket is needed.

Cute sign in the lunch cafe.

After lunch we drove to a lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin. This is the point where the Southern and Indian oceans meet and is the furthest southwest point of Australia.

After the light house we went to a harbor that is very well protected and has a brand new jetty to walk out on. Most of the rock for the jetty was granite and had beautiful striations in the huge rocks.

The negative was that the rocks were so high you could not see out to the open ocean. We did see one of the fishing boats unloading and they had tons of sharks of all different sizes that they were putting into iced containers.

We walked the coast some and on our way back to the farm we drove through a beautiful Kauri forest.

Michelle continues to make wonderful meals for us to enjoy in the evening. I was able to watch the FSU game on the computer and what a pleasant surprise that was!

Monday Sept 1st – Today is labor day in the US but Australia does not recognize a Labor Day. Today was going to be a stay home day but Michelle had talked herself into the bird bath so we went back to Cow Town to pick it up. Michelle and Merv are actually moving off the farm on their return from Bali they are moving to an active adult living community/lifestyle village. Their house is almost done and they have been cleaning out to move to the new place. The bird bath will fit nicely in the new front yard.

The new bird bath.

After the quick run to get the bird bath we came home for lunch and then went into Busselton to run a few errands. Kathy and I walked the Main Street and checked out several shops while Merv & Michelle did their chores. We picked up a few more groceries and then back to the farm.

We did a quick walk around the flower sheds to see some of the recent cuttings. Tuesday is a big shipping day for flowers so they were busy cutting, counting stems and boxing them all up.

Pin cushions on the left, filler flowers in the middle and King Protea on the right. The King Protea go for 20 Australian a stem when selling to retailers.

More of the “filler” flowers that they sell along with the King Protea.

We went out for dinner in Margaret River and met up with Merv & Michelle’s daughter Jasmine (Jay) and her boyfriend Drew. We have now met all of the family and glad Jaz could fit us in between a business trip to Sydney & having to leave for London for business.

Kathy and I had fish tacos that were excellent. Most of the fish for both fish and chips and any sort of fried fish is shark. Now we know what they are doing with all the sharks we saw them unloading.

Tuesday Sept 3rd – We have been taking walks around the farm in the morning sometimes with Merv and sometimes just the 2 of us. Merv gets up early and is usually done by the time we get going.

We headed back to Margaret River, where we had dinner last night, to check out the town and some of the local wineries. The area has hundreds of wineries and several have wine tastings and some sort of cafe or restaurant. We walked around 2 of the bigger wineries and had a couple of tastings and Michelle bought some wine and then we headed to Main Street for lunch. We were quite surprised that most of the cafes and restaurants close at 1pm and several we approached were already closed. We did find a tavern and sat outside and had a lovely lunch.

We walked the town for an hour and then on our way back to the farm we went by a favorite surfing spot that their son goes to frequently. It is close by and not too rough and their son Jade has been teaching the grand kids, Joni & Jasper to surf. They go out early in the morning before school and work to surf. They have to use wet suits all year long but this time of year it is the thicker wet suits.

Beautiful sandy beaches and aqua water.

We can’t believe that a week has already passed and Merv & Michelle are wonderful hosts. They have really put a lot of thought into our visit.

Wednesday Sept 3rd – We did laundry this a.m. in preparation for our road trip tomorrow. Since there is so much sunshine here they prefer to dry the clothes on the line instead of using a dryer. Using a clothesline brings back memories and I forgot how nice the clothes smell after being dried in the sun.

We visited more wineries today but no tastings. Most of the wineries have shops attached and they sell an assortment of items. One winery we visited sold nougat candy in all different flavors and of course we had to help the local economy by buying some.

We had lunch outside at another winery but none of us had wine. Kathy and Michelle like the beer, Merv likes ginger beer and I have been sticking with the apple ciders. We had sushi for lunch and the pieces were huge so we over ordered. The grandkids had a nice after school snack since we had leftovers.

Lunch sushi and this was only half of it!

After lunch we visited the local chocolate shop and then back to the farm for the afternoon to start preparing for our road trip tomorrow. Michelle is trying to empty out the fridge and Kathy is helping her prepare dinner while I work on this post.