On The Road

We departed Kalgoorlie early in the morning along with The Villa Carlotta Tour. Then it was to the airport to pick up our rental car. They upgraded us so we have a Nisson suv. Plenty of room for all our stuff. Michael handled rush hour traffic in perth and we made it back to Andrew and Pauline's South Perth apt. We packed and organized as if were not coming back to the apartment just to give us maximum flexibility. The luggage seems to have gotten heavier since it's initial packing. Trying to travel with books and wine will do that to you. Dinner was take away from the Thai Orchid. We ate while gazing at The Perth night sky.


The gps in the car refuses to speak to us no matter how we adjust the vol/mute settings. So I am armed with my IPad and in my dulcet tone croon my directions to Michael. Of course, once out of Perth, it is a straight shot south on The Albany Highway. A lot of oversize vehicles, road trains and various farm equipment. Luckily there were overtaking lanes.



As we drove out of Perth, there were storm clouds brewing. Michael kept the pace up, keeping the bad weather behind us until we stopped for lunch in Kojonup at a roadside cafe/distillery. A lovely stone building deck and gardens. We sat in the covered outside porch watching the clouds gather and darken.








As we began to eat the storm bore down and this terrific wind began to blow everything about. There was a mad dash to the inside bar area.

There were worse places to ride out the storm.




Back on the road, you could see the damage with a number of trees down in the road. The countryside is vast with fields of grains, oats, barley, canola, spelt and wheat. Cattle and sheep graze here and there. Towns are anywhere from a post office to a few buildings. We passed the entry to what I am assuming was a farm. There were these poles with wire sculptures of birds.








Our destination was a hotel, The Lily (http://www.thelily.com.au/). And as we checked in, the clouds were amassing. We met Ted the sheepdog who was lovely and accompanied me for a prestorm jaunt around the premise.









The working windmill sits on a small hill overlooking The Stirling Range. The owners have a winery in addition to the mill. The also have a small airstrip and offer flying lessons. Pleun, who is Dutch built the mill himself copied from a mill in Holland. He also plays the saxaphone and keyboard and has recorded some CDs that are in our cottage. We are in the winery building. A small bedroom and living room with kitchen. There are exposed beams varied art work and well provisioned kitchen. Hennie collects frogs and all around are frogs worked into the decor. Just after we got inside, the storm hit again with driving wind and rain. Ted curled up in our living room and we watched dry and cozy. The power went out but pleun started the generator. We had booked dinner and at seven a car drove up and delivered a delicious dinner of pork chops in a rosemary wine sauce. How lucky are we.






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Location:Stirling Range, Western Australia