Our down south holiday couldn’t have come sooner. After months of preparing for and supporting MINExpo (and not getting to go to Vegas myself) I very much needed a break!
We started our holiday with breakfast at Brother of Mine with Andrew’s parents to celebrate Andrew’s mums birthday. It was a great breakfast that fuelled our climb up Castle Rock (I guess the Riesling tasting at Castle Rock helped with that too).
Castle Rock started out pretty tame; while there were some steep bits, and a big open section of smooth slippery granite, there wasn’t anything too crazy until the top. We waited out an impending rain front under the cover of some balancing rocks, then made our way up the hand-hold scramble and the ladder to the Sky Walk. It was not easy! On a nice warm day it would have been fine, but the hand holds and the ladder were both ice cold, so we had to take it slow to make sure our hands would actually grip. The hand holds were a bit scrambly, but the ladder itself was OK, and the view was amazing, although we only stayed a little bit since the wind was brutal.
That night we set up our tent, then made the most of the lovely Porongurup Tourist Park kitchen and had our Mt Barker sausages in front of the fire. We had a pretty cold sleep but luckily it didn't rain! The next day we packed up our tent and set off to climb Nancy’s Peak and Devil's Slide.
Nancy’s peak was a beautiful forest walk that, similar to Castle Rock, occasionally opened up onto smooth granite rock that we had to take pretty slowly because it was so slippery. There were some rocky steep bits and while I got a bit puffed out (Andrew didn’t!) it wasn’t too hard, and overall a really lovely walk with beautiful views, and so many wild flowers! At the top we had our muesli bars and started the much harder climb down. Down is so much harder than up! I sat down a lot to tentatively take steps.
Had to do a quick impression of Boston's Devil's Slide Red Ale:
The turn to Devil's Slide is at an opening with a sign pointing toward the car park, and the 0.76km trail to Devils Slide. What’s 0.76km right? So wrong. It was SO HARD, I actually cannot believe how hard it was given we saw another lady, and a nice couple, all in their 70s doing it (the couple was actually celebrating their anniversary, they’d done this same trail in their 20s!). It was extremely steep, with rocky bits that would have been ok if they weren’t muddy and slippery, and smooth granite bits that were ok when dry but very slippery when wet (or just randomly slippery to make it fun). The whole time I was terrified thinking about the way back down! Andrew was very encouraging and put up with a lot of my complaining. The view at the top again was so worth it that it temporarily made me forget what we were in for on the way down.
The way down was actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but my butt, sleeves and shoes were soaked by the end of it due to lots of sitting down, inching, and some literal devil's sliding.
I can’t believe Nancy’s Peak and Devil's Slide are even compared; maybe it was the weather but Devils Slide was way harder. I imagine on a sunny dry day maybe they’d be more similar in difficulty, but the day we did it they were very different in difficulty. The real difficulty is the slipperiness though; in terms of steepness, it’s hard and it will puff you out, but doable if you’re willing to brave the treacherousness.
Overall the whole thing took us about 3h, 10m, and we made it on time for wine tasting at Dukes (more surprisingly delicious Riesling), and lunch at Maleeya’s Thai Cafe for the hands down best Thai we’ve had. We took the leftovers with us to Nannup Caravan Park for dinner.
Our second night was again in the tent, and was much nicer after getting a bit more used to how to get comfortable in it (middle of the air mattress, wear your big jacket, and 3x Hot Hands!), and we woke up to an incredible morning chorus of birds and light rain. Things got a bit damp, but not wet, so it wasn't too bad to get everything wrangled back into the car.
Our third day was breakfast at Melo Velo in Nannup, a little wild flower walk, cheese tasting at Cambray, wine tasting at Woodlands, lunch at Wills Domain (wow), and making our way to the amazing Bina Maya accommodation. The Residence at Bina Maya was really stunning, probably the best place we've ever stayed. The balcony overlooking the forest was magical. As Andrew put it, two days of intrepidness really made us appreciate the unparalleled luxury!
Fourth day started with breakfast at the White Elephant cafe, exploring the Margaret River mouth and watching some surfing, a paddle and fried pickles at Wild Hop Brewery, Simmos, Yallingup Bread, and then enjoying the accommodation by firing up the BBQ with amazing produce from Margaret River. Andrew did an amazing job, it was delicious! We started watching Tenet, but we couldn't finish it, it sucked the energy out of us trying to understand what the hell was going on.
Fifth day was a beautiful walk on a section of the Cape to Cape trail with lots of wild flowers, a cute lizard, some whale sightings, and Sugar Loaf Rock, which is a loaf in terms of the way sugar used to be stored, not an actual bread loaf. We shared a paddle and some chips at Cheeky Monkey, tasted the best 2018 Chardonnay of the trip at Pierro's (it was quite pricy, we went back and bought it after thinking on it!) then had dinner at the accommodation and finished watching Tenet (we mostly of get it, kind of).
Sixth day was wine tasting at Leeuwin Estate, lunch at Voyager Estate (another wow), and then enjoying the fire pit and forest at Bina Maya.
On the way home on the 7th day, we stopped off at Simmos again for one last taste of down south. Luckily we both took Friday off, Monday is a public holiday, and it's Royal Show time! I definitely feel refreshed.
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