Perth. The Second Installment

For the second half of our trip, Mark and I drove away from Perth and headed down south. Our furthest point, Margaret river is about 300 Km from Perth city. But we detoured and stopped in different towns in the 3 days we were down south, and clocked well over 1000 Km according to the car gauge!In preparation for the Amazing Race Asia ( Oh.. why don't they have season 4!?!) ... I was co-driver, in charge of the navigation. Screwed up a couple of times... and Mark had to use instinct when faced with forks and unexpected junctions... haha... but nothing major. We still got to where we wanted to. We had a good yummy breakfast at Rockingham (our first stop) after driving past Fremantle. The roads were mostly clear and the weather was fantastic.. clear blue skies all the way. Total drive (including breakfast and a couple of pitstops/snack stops) from Perth to Bunker Bay was almost 4 hours!We stayed 2 nights at Quay West Resorts, Bunker Bay. Bunker Bay is just off Cape Naturaliste. It's an eco resort so it's built into the natural environment without changing the landscape. So from the beach, it's so discreet, you can hardly see it (red arrow). Eco on the outside, but the interior is luxurious!I haven't enjoyed a warm bubble bath in a long while... it was my one indulgence. The rest of the trip was spent out in the sun, sand, and wind!They have a lovely infinity pool that spills over the edge of the building, I think it's supposed to make guests feel like they're swimming out to the sea.

But why would I swim in a pool (which pretends to be part of the sea) when there's a 100 meter board walk from my villa that leads me down to a private stretch of beach?!If I lived there, I'd jog on the beach every morning. So refreshing... and really works the legs!Really loved it. The place is untouched. Warm sunshine, soft sand.. and waters so brilliantly blue.Incidentally, for the readers who think that Mark is a figment of my imagination, and I've actually been travelling alone all this while... there he is in the background of this pic above. Haha. He doesn't lead as public a life as I do, hence the scarcity of his pics online.Bunker Bay is also where I took the pic for the new blog mast. I don't know why some people made a hoohah over the new blog mast. It's the same photo of my back as my previous blog mast. The only difference is that this new one has a gorgeous blue background. I actually like it better than the previous grayscale one. Loved the blue skies and sea of Bunker Bay, so I asked Mark to snap my pic. Plus the previous blog pic was taken by a stranger (!). I much rather have my own BF take my pic.We also visited Margaret River... and lunched at Vasse Felix. Actually, all the vineyards there are great. So you can just pick any one. I think the best time to go is during harvesting ( March/April), so the vineyard will be busy and more interesting.There's free wine tasting... and the sommelier is very helpful .. so don't worry if you know nothing about wine.Other than Vineyards, Margaret River has art, great cheese places and also olive oil. I didn't go to any chocolate factory (even though readers recommended it), sorry!Am not a fan of art... hence I tried to entertain myself by forcing my leg over my head (unsuccessfully).

Our last day there, we took the freeway/highway back instead of the coastal roads. The drive only took about 2 and a half hours (at a pretty fast and constant speed though). We had enough of scenery, and just wanted to get back to Perth to rest. Our last night in Australia. We had dinner at Halo, Barrack Street Jetty, near the bell tower. Very nice.... I miss their fresh fresh fresh Oysters.. :(

Nevermind... I think this Sunday we'll most probably be going to the Hyatt buffet (oysters!) for a Christmas get-together with some of his friends. I'll knock myself out then.