Our last full day in Margaret River. The weather hadn’t improved, not that it stopped us from doing things. As usual we started the day with a run. We ran the rails to trails again, going further this morning. The plan was to do at least 10km return, but we decided to reassess after 5, 6 and 7.5km. At about the 5km mark the rain bucketed down but there was nothing we could do except keep going…..which we did. We eventually turned at the 7.5km mark but really on those trails you feel you could run all day. It’s a beautiful running surface surrounded by forest.
After breakfast we headed into town for a coffee at Urban Bean – beautiful coffee though there was a fly encounter involving Ruth’s coffee 
. Following our coffee we visited the Fudge Factory which was very conveniently just across the road. The delicious and sweet smell of fudge greeted you when you opened the door to enter. There were shelves of fudge everywhere. Samples were available and sample we did though it required several samples to make up our mind about which ones to buy .
On to Stella Bella winery to sample some more wines including a Scuttlebutt Sauvignon blanc semillon and a delicious pink muscat (so pretty and girly and very easy to drink). Several bottles of the pink muscat found their way to our car! After a short visit to the winery, it was off to Augusta for lunch, a visit to Cape Leeuwin lighthouse and Jewel Cave. The last time I visited Cape Leeuwin lighthouse was about 18 years ago when the wife of the caretaker had bought a knitting machine I had for sale and so we delivered it to them (we lived in Busselton at the time). They had invited us to stay for lunch. Today there is no lighthouse caretaker but the weather, especially the wind, was how I remembered the place – wild and very windy (and today, also wet).
Jewel cave was absolutely amazing. So incredibly big with amazing stalactite and stalagmite formations. The tour took about one hour and involved 500 steps either up or down to see the various formations. The tour was well worth doing. After visiting the cave we stopped at Hamelin Bay for a quick look at the beach before heading back to Margaret River.
Our last dinner in Margaret River was at the Arc of Iris, a self-described small quirky restaurant with incredibly good food as we discovered. Most of the meals were gluten free and the ingredients are sourced locally. For the main course I had the pork belly with spiced red cabbage (truly delicious and reminded me of Christmas) and apple; Ruth had the rack of venison with potato mash, green beans, red currant jelly and sour cream; and Mr B had pan fried snapper. The wine we had with our meal was a Voyager Estate sauvignon blanc semillon. Being our last night we decided to have dessert – I had the gluten gree chocolate & walnut cake with choc sauce, raspberry sauce and vanilla bean icecream; both Mr B and Ruth had the apricot crumble with vanilla bean icecream. It was a delicious meal in a small lively restaurant which is obviously popular with the locals as the restaurant was full. Highly recommended!
It is going to be hard to leave this trip behind, so much has been happening. But nice to have you back east.