We got up fairly early and got everything packed, leaving our tent and camping gear with Sarah to find a use for them! We drive back down into Perth for breakfast at Zamia, the cafe in the heart of King’s Park where Sarah and David both work.

After a good feed, we said our farewells and took a wander around the park. We walked up the DNA tower, took a few photographs of Perth, and then took to the roads for one last time and made our way to the airport.

We were flying direct to Singapore with Singapore Airlines and were very impressed by the food (a nice beef curry) and drink (lovely Singapore Sling), and enjoyed Juno while we ate. Also watched the nonsense of Hitman…

Our onward flight to Cambodia was not until the following morning, so we had booked into the Transit Hotel overnight. The hotel is comfortable, like a basic Travelodge, and is airside – perfect for long transfers. We almost didn’t want to go to bed – Singapore airport is a fantastic place; free PS3 and Xbox 360 stands, free internet, sunflower garden and a free cinema (although the cinema in our terminal was being refurbished).

We used the free internet to transfer some money around – and by the time we had done this we were tired and grumpy and glad to have a bed to go to. It was a bit cold in the room, so a call for more blankets was required and we then slept pretty well.

We started the day at a lovely bakery in Joondalup, Sugar and Spice. I had a lovely caramel slice and we both had a coffee. We then headed inland to the Swan Valley, a large wine region to the east of Perth. We were running a bit low on petrol and had a bit of a job finding a pump, and then had a little trouble finding the tourist information – that’s what happens when we you don’t plan your visit and have forgotten your guide book!

Anyway, we planned a nice route around the the area, taking in the Houghton Winery, Sitella, Talijancich, Feral Beers (where we shared a chorizo platter), a nougat factory (rubbish!) and then Jane Brook for a lovely cheese and pate platter.

We headed back to Joondalup and tidied out the car, ready to hand back the next day. We then all went back into Perth in Sarah’s car to meet friends in Leederville – including Tom’s brother David, another former Dundonald resident. We ate at a nice Italian, pizza and pasta all round – great craic.

We drove into the upmarket Subiaco district for breakfast – unfortunately everything was closed. Surprising, even though it Sunday… So for the third day we ended up in our third branch of Dome. Food was grand okay though.

Unsure what to do in Perth, we headed to the Museum of Western Australia. Not being big museum folk, we were actually really impressed at information and exhibits available – insects, animals, minerals, colonisation Western Australia, Aboriginal history. All very interesting and worth a few hours.

We then checked out the official city beach before driving up the ‘Sunset Drive’ along the coast of the Indian Ocean – although sadly it wasn’t sunset.

Arriving back in Joondalup, Sarah took us to the Joondalup bird park to feed the parrots and galahs. They didn’t care for the nuts we had brought, but luckily a prior family had been over generous so we scavenged a few handfuls and were able to get the birds interested.

We drove back to Sarah’s house and she prepped us a beautiful fresh curry before we headed to bed fairly early.

The centre of Freemantle has a street full of lovely cafes, so we headed in early for our breakfast. On our way to a coffee shop, we wandered through an amusement arcade and found ourselves starting the day with a few rounds of Point Blank 2. Unfortunately neither of the guns were particularly responsive or accurate, so we left a little disappointed.

We went over to Gino’s for coffee and cheesecake, before continuing our cafe crawl down to Dome for another drink.

Our main aim for the day was to meet up with Laura’s friends in Joondalup, but we had time to spare so stopped off in Perth for a quick Walking tour from the Lonely Planet guide. We decided to save King’s Park for another day and drove up the coast to Joondalup. We stopped of at a lovely beach –the whole coast is lined with them.

We then killed time for a while, just driving around the suburbs and wondering what life might be like out here – and saw plenty of gorgeous houses that made us think it might be okay…

When it was time for Laura’s friend Sarah to finish work, we headed over to her house in the suburb of Joondalup where she rustled us up a great barbecue – sausages, chicken, flatbread and endless fantastic wine. Sarah is a bit of an expert on food and drink – the perfect person to stay with! Unfortunately Tom, her husband (and former Dundonald friend of Laura) was away working in the mines on the days of our visit – but hopefully we’ll make it back out there another time.

We all sat up chatting until after midnight – possibly the latest we had stayed up on the whole trip!

We slept in until 8:30am, fairly late for our planned trip to Freemantle. We pressed on though and after a two hour drive pulled into town. By chance we passed a camp site and decided to get sorted before we did any sightseeing – a good thing too as we managed to get one of only two remaining camp sites in a huge camp and caravan park.

With that sorted, we rushed on into town, aiming to get the 12pm ferry to Rottnest Island – we made it just in time, but sadly their were only spaces left on the 4pm ferry, making for a very short trip.

It took 25 minutes to get to the island and by the time we got there we were starving. There were a few cafes near the ferry jetty, so we headed to the Dome cafe for a club sandwich and a ciabatta – both really nice. We then walked to the island store to get water, and then (very belatedly) starting planning what we should do.

We both had our own suggestion – Laura wanting to get the bus around the island and me suggesting that we just walk to the nearest beach and do some snorkelling. In the end we decided (well I thought we decided) to walk to the beach – this turned out to be a long, hot, boring slog over the island. I maintain that the bus ride would also have been boring, but agreed it would have been more comfortable.

Unfortunately not even the sight of a cute quokka (a small scruffy kangaroo critter) could cheer Laura’s mood, so we both trudged to the beach in silence – where Laura hid from the sun under a rock while I had a quick, unexciting snorkel – perhaps we were spoiled with Ningaloo!

I was barely in the water before it was time to hop out and head back to the ferry, where we eventually made up – by the time we got back to the tent we were happy as ever and skipped off to the docklands restaurant area to the very cool Little Creature brewery. There we had a delicious selection of beers and some amazing chips – as well as a so-so pizza and salad.

We ended our day with a trip to Baskin Robbins for far too much icecream, and went to bed happy – and for the last time to our wonderfully comfy tent!

We got up early and drove on to the Valley of the Giants and took a guided tour of the huge, ancient tingle trees. We then walked around over the long suspended walkways through the treetops – very impressive.

We had our lunch in a noodle restaurant in Albany before driving round to their beautiful beach. We took a detour to visit the signposted town of ‘Youngs’ but it was so so small that we didn’t even notice driving through it.

Turning the car around, it was time to head back to the big city of Perth, over 400km northwest. In the end we only made it 250km to Williams, a nondescript town with a camp site and a garage – which provided us with fruit salad, cheese and crackers for dinner.

Margaret River is a really special place, beautiful scenery, great food and wine, beaches – one of the most perfect places we have seen. But after a few days of indulgence, it was time to hit the rode again and we drove down to Pemberton to see the famous Gloucester tree.

A former fire tree lookout post, the tree allows you to climb up the steep ‘ladder’ consisting of metal spikes knocked into the trunk of the tree – 60m to the top. I actually found myself feeling very queasy as we got higher and higher. Laura sped on ahead, quite happy – but by the time I caught up at the top, I felt quite sick and shaky! Going down was much easier, thank goodness.

We took a walk around a short marked track in the woods – very pretty, and spectacular trees all around. Didn’t see any wildlife until we returned to the picnic spot at the foot of the Gloucester Tree where a few types of parrot were looking for a few crumbs from the tourists. I grabbed some bread (which I wet before feeding the birds, of course) from the car, and on my way back to Laura a gorgeous little red parrot alighted on my shoulder – so cute!

We sat feeding them for a long time before heading for some food ourselves – coffee, tea and apple cake back in Coffee Connection in Pemberton. A lovely spot, with shaded seating in a nice native species garden. Highly recommended.

We drove on to Walpole and set up camp before heading to one of the few eating spots in town – we just grabbed a takeaway fish and chips and drove back to the camp site, eating them at a picnic table near the water’s edge. We were a little bothered by the seagulls – especially when I accidentally dropped a chip and caused much excitement.

After a game of Scrabble in the tent, we decided to head into the darkness to look for some kangaroos – and sure enough we spied a big one and their baby hopping through the camp site. I’m sure I heard a few shuffling around the tent at night too…

Having enjoyed my surf lesson the previous day, I wanted to have another mess around in the water while I had the chance. So we woke at 8am and drove down to the Gnarabup beach shop to hire a wet suit and board (which just about fitted in the car). We went back to Redgate Beach and I spent a good couple of hours trying to get stood up – only a couple of minor successes, but enjoyable nonetheless and I would love to have a nice warm beach nearby to try this at home.

Laura had a quick go herself, but was far from impressed.

We headed on to Berry Farm where we ate icecream and tried their beautiful fruit wine – the strawberry wine was great. The restaurant actually forgot to bring out our icecream and prunes (the only thing we ordered – the sweet menu was underwhelming) and eventually brought us the dish and refunded our money, perfect!

We had been entertaining ourselves with the birds around the outside seating. The restaurant provides sugar for guests to feed the birds. A little sprinkle on the table and the little birds fly down and start slurping it up with their long tongues!

We drove on to a cheesery where we bought a lovely double cream brie, and then to a chocolate factory where we snarfed down a bunch of their free chocolate buttons – and grabbed a few extras to eat in the car while sipping shiraz. Perfect, it really is a magical place!

We finished the day with another BBQ with the leftovers from the previous night – again it was beautiful.

We then experienced our first annoyance while camping – noisy American neighbours chatting until 1am about the most inane drivel. Not great when you are just inside a thin piece of canvas.

We had to get up at 6:55am as I had an appointment at the Margaret River Surf School. We drove down to their shop at Gnarabup beach and then drove on to Redgate Beach to meet the instructor, Max.

I had gone for a 2 hour private lesson, and Laura sat on the beach, snapping away and reading her book. I managed to stand up a couple of times, partly with assistance from Max, but it was great fun and incredibly tiring.

We went back to the camp to freshen up before going into town to check out the local market, where we picked up sweetcorn, olives and exchanged our books at the bookshop. We went on to the supermarket and loaded up on barbecue food – kangaroo steaks, beef steak, Wagyu beefburgers and chicken kebabs.

We used the camp kitchen and barbecue (hot plate) to chef it all up – absolutely fantastic, and so nice to sit outside and eat it all. Yes, once again we went to be stuffed.

Today we tackled the wineries to the south of Margaret River:

• Hamelin Bay – bought a sauvingnon blanc.
• Meadery – we pulled in here, but it looked like someone’s house, with no obvious shop… so we made a u-turn and skipped it.
• Leuwin estate – we chatted to a lovely Mancunian lass who worked there after emigrating a few years ago, and ended up buying a pricey, but phenomenal ‘Art series’ Chardonnay.
• Voyager Estate – a strange mock South African colonial building, the inside resembling a British 80’s tea room. We had a tasting and then took lunch in the restaurant – duck pie and pork belly both delicious.

Our drive took us as far down to Augusta and through the beautiful karri forests that cover much of the region, but once again we were stuffed and so headed back to the camp site to relax.

We had another light dinner of crisps and dips – the dips from the supermarket were amazing – and headed to bed.