The Southwest Corner – Part Two (Cape Naturaliste)

This is Part Two of our Southwest Corner adventures! For the beginning of our travels around this region, including a couple maps of the region, check out Part One.

We woke up the morning after hanging out with our Canadian friends with a biiiit of a headache. It was a pretty slow morning that day. After dragging ourselves to an excellent breakfast, and delivering a couple of bacon egg rolls to our still-sleeping drinking companions, we managed to rustle up the energy and enough Panadol to get us to the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse for a quick look around.

We’ve seen a fair few lighthouses on all our travels around Australia, but they’re always beautiful, and well worth a look – I love the way their white and red paint stands out against the bright blue sky and green vegetation, and of course the ocean breeze from whatever headland they’re sitting on is so refreshing.

Speaking of ocean breezes, next on our list was to check out some of the points of interest along the coast, including this short ~2km walk through multi-coloured scrub and wildflowers for a look at the coast.

Nearby, Sugarloaf Rock is a tourist photo op Mecca, and sure enough we checked it out as well for the requisite Instagram photo. We’ve seen others post on Instagram actually swimming near or sunbathing on the rock, but when we were there it was too cold and windy! Or maybe we’re just still spoiled from so much time spent up north.

Breakfast, a lighthouse, and a walk through the wildflowers was about all we could handle after the previous late night, and so for the rest of the afternoon, we hung out at the beach – Bunker Bay Beach, specifically.

This was the first time we’d swam in the ocean since Ningaloo Reef, about 1300km north (and reminder for our Northern Hemisphere friends that here, the farther north you go the warmer it gets), and boy it was a bit of a shock! Even though the water is a beautiful tropical green-blue, and crystal clear…GOSH was it ever cold!!

As we were trying to warm up in the sun after our chilly swim, a couple arrived with their four small fluffy dogs. We watched as the pack of adorable puffballs frolicked on the beach and took particular joy in barking at the waves while standing just beyond the water’s edge, but rapidly retreating if the water got too close. One of the puffballs turned its back at exactly the wrong moment and got absolutely soaked, and probably turned tail over head, as a huge wave rolled in right overhead. It was fine (although drenched with saltwater and covered with sand), and the puffball pack quickly ran to the rescue, telling off the ocean wave with all of the fury only a gang of small fluffy dogs can muster. Nick and I absolutely laughed our faces off. Free entertainment is the best entertainment.

Our spot for the night was in a town called Yallingup, at a small caravan park/campground there. We chose a caravan park because, while they’re not our favourite things in the world (we find it pretty annoying and uncomfortable to be parked close to neighbours like sardines, and to have to pay $30 to $40 or more for the privilege), but they do often have convenient locations within town limits. This one in particular was available as a pickup location for the WINE TOUR we booked!

There are an absolutely amazing quantity of wine and beer and liquor and food destinations in this region. Check out the map on my previous post, and this informational sign we passed at one point showing just how spoilt for choice we are…

We opted to drop some cash on a wine tour so that we could maximise our productivity exploring for a day, without worrying about splitting up the driving or taking long breaks. It was well worth the ticket price – our bus tour group was fun and we met some great people, the tour guide was easygoing and knowledgeable, and we managed to hit three wineries, a brewery, a dairy (cheese and ice cream), and a chocolate shop. Holy cow.

We’re not wine or food critics, so we won’t bother sharing detailed tasting notes (hah! As if we write tasting notes) or anything for all the wineries we visited, but our favourite winery of the 3 we visited was Cape Naturaliste, a small winery obsessed with quality. The Grove Distillery is also well worth a visit – Nick bought a nice single malt there to send home for one day when we have a home bar again. The cheese and chocolate shops were pretty crowded and felt like an assembly line – but free samples are still always appreciated!

Here’s a little photo timeline from the day:

We definitely felt like we got our money’s worth from the Bush Tucker Tour, but it only touched the tip of the iceberg of all of the exploring we still had ahead of us! We would recommend taking one of these tours as an introduction to a region, but also spending a few extra days exploring on your own.

The next day we took a break from wine tasting and hit up the Ngilgi Cave – a cave system nearby that you could explore yourself after a short ten minute introduction by one of the rangers. Now this was a cool place. There was a huge chamber where concerts had been held in the past (great acoustics!), several examples of amazing crystal growths, a ranger situated at the bottom of the cave system to educate visitors about the various types of rock in the caves (including samples you could touch and hold), and a crawl tunnel linking up two areas of the cave (intended for kids, but what the hell, we’re kids at heart!).

We spent almost two hours in the cave exploring and taking photos, and then headed to explore another nearby landmark – Canal Rocks. Once again, it was too cold for us to swim, but Nick climbed up on some of the rocks and took some awesome photos. You can see why it’s called Canal Rocks!

We still have lots of exploring ahead of us, too – but once again this post is getting lengthy so you’ll have to “tune in” next time for part three of our Southwest Corner adventures!!