Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Days 29 & 30 - Boranup Forest And Mouth Of The Margaret River

Our days in Western Australia are coming to an end. Actually, I've found I should be referring to where we are as the far Southwestern part of West Australia as West Australia state takes up almost a third of Australia's total landmass.

On Thursday and Friday we visited the Boranup Forest and the Mouth of the Margaret River. We had another high end dining experience and a great wine tasting.

 Around where we are staying

There has been a paucity of laundry to photograph. I finally had to just take a picture of our own. At least, there was a view.

 

 There is neighborhood store that serves not only the community but all the people who come to Gracetown for water activities

 

 

 

 Boranup Forest - noted for some special trees that via a bunch questions we determined were special because...well...they're special

"G'day Mate. I'm special"

 

 "You're no more special then we are mate!"

 

 Let's just acknowledge you are all special in your own tree like way

 

 

 

 

 

Pooh Lee Shah contemplates how special each tree is

 

 Lovely woman (how many wonderful people have we met this trip) who runs a cafe in said forest

 

 Wine tasting at Moss Wood

2B had me do a bunch of wine tastings and I admit the wine in Margaret River region is not at all like the stereotype of Australian wines. This particular winery only does tastings by appointment and include a tour.

de-I showing his wine cred with Estonian born winery representative

 

 Grapes

 

Because of a storm coming in, they were working like crazy to get all the grapes off the vines

 

 

 Getting wine right out of the barrel

 

 The Margaret River Mouth was a bit of a disappointment as the river didn't even make it to the sea. But the coast was still nice. 

 

 There were PENGUINS

 

 

 

Not a Penguin

 

 

 The hunting habits of Espouses Fotographicus Australis

 

 

 Parrots

 

 

 

 High End Food...Not my thing but we had a lot of it and I had to admit most of it was gorgeous and it did taste good. Just not worth the cost.

Salad 

 

 Believe it or not, these are a potato dish

 

 A fish dish

 

 Butter with honey

 

 We had an odd incident with this restaurant. They refused to let us takeaway any of our leftovers. They had some policy that it would be a food hazard and liability to them. I've never heard or experienced such a thing in all my years. I mad a big ole stink. Said they should at least let you know in advance of this policy you didn't over buy. They ended up taking all the food we were going to take home off the bill.

Signs Of The World

A fan of Squid Lips

 

 Dogs and cats are not allowed to be coexist peacefully. Fight like 'cats and dogs' like you are expected

 

Asia Mega Tour 2026 - Day Twenty Six - Photography In Margaret River Town

By the Great Spirit of Ansel Adams the photographic lust is upon us in full force. 

A confluence of events...the area we are visiting is a very nice, bucolic agriculturally oriented region in the vein of Paso Robles or Sonoma Counties in California. That means nice things to look at in a general sense but not the type of historically interesting or culturally interesting things you would find many other places we commonly visit. So wandering around with photography as the primary focus as opposed to wandering around with history and culture as the primary focus really fits in. Add to this that Wife has been oriented this way. As I mentioned last time, she has been finding tutorials on YouTube that I've been listening to. This has created the perfect storm for photographic focus.

Today we were wandering around the town of Margaret River. The town is nice enough but nothing particularly note worthy in terms of architecture or history. For more on the complete history and current environment here is a link to its page on Wikipedia. 

Photography

Details for those who might be interested

 Today I was working on advice to use a single focal length throughout the day. Our regular, what we call our walking around lens, is a zoom lens that goes from a focal length of 12 to 200. In simple terms that is a short wider angle with greater detail to a longer zooming in with less detail. According to the person Wife was listening to, using your zoom capability makes you lazy in terms of your thinking about how you want to compose and frame your pictures. Working with a single focal length makes you be more selective and requires you to move your feet and body more to get the kinds of shots you want. He further advised that it wasn't necessary to buy a whole set of fixed lens. One could just set the focal length on the zoom and keep it there during the shoot. Today I had it set at 45. I chose 45 rather than the more common 50 because there is a clear mark on the lens at 45 so I could be sure of keeping it consistent. There is one exception to that. The bird picture which was done with zoom. 

Bird

 

 Family

 

 

 

 

 Street Art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Candid Shots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patterns & Other

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Ants

Signs Of The World

The Margret River area is proving to be a treasure trove of unique signage

Evidently caffeine is not enough of a stimulant for your typical Aussie!

  

Also, among a certain age group, there are not enough potential mates to go around

 

 Australian competitiveness in sports is well known. A local Satanic group has offered success if you will sell your soul to them

 

Retailers have found it hard to find the fixtures they need to keep growing 

 

 And, of course, one of the true culinary delicacies of Western Australian cooking