I started my morning with a walk along the Margaret River. I found some more flowers and even some orchards. At one point the path ended right at somebody’s house. They had left food out for the parrot I saw in their yard. It was a very pleasant walk.

Today looked like a mostly rainy day. We decided to drive to a couple of wineries. The first one was the Watershed Winery, We planned to have tea and scones here, but they were out of scones by the time we arrived.

It is a very expensive winery in a beautiful building with wonderful landscaping. The property is actually located on a watershed and the property used to belong to Jan’s family farm. The winery people cleared all of the land. You can see Jan’s house in the last photo.

We stopped at Voyager Winery to have tea and scones, but they had sold all of the scones before we arrived.  So we headed out to the next winery.

At the Leeuwin winery we actually did a wine tasting. My tasting wine is a new behavior and at 11:00 am is certainly something rare. We had our tea and scones here. The presentation was very nice. After our treat we went downstairs to their gallery where the paintings from many local artists were displayed. Many of the paintings were actually used for the labels for their wine.

Lyn heard a Kookaburra singing.   I didn’t hear it, but I got a photo. I loved the trees on the property.

We stopped at the Payet Gallery. It was a beautiful building with wonderful displays of jewelry and other art objects.

Next we spent a short time at Redgate Beach. I loved watching the waves crash against the rocks.

Our next stop was Lake Cave, which was discovered by a woman from the Bussell family when she was riding horses. We didn’t have time to go down into the caves.

We took a walk around the property and saw many orchids. The following collages include the flowers and orchids I saw on my morning walk.

Although I can’t identify them all, here are some of the names of these orchids and flowers:

• Cowslip Orchid
• Donkey Orchid
• Spider Orchid
• Pink Fairy Orchid
• Bacon and Egg
• Hooves

I have become fascinated with the grass trees. I wrote about them in a previous post. They grow very, very slowly.

The following two collages show them from various angles and in various stages of growth.

When Jan and I were at the Perth Botanic Gardens, we were looking for Banksia cones, but we couldn’t find any. Today we saw several of them.

Rose saw dolphins swimming in the river when we stopped   I jumped out of the car, but was not fast enough to get a photo. It was a beautiful spot and I watched the pelican swimming in the water.

As we drove along the Finder’s Bay there was a beautiful rainbow.

On December 6, 1801, Captain Matthew Flinder, Captain of H.M.S. Investigator, sighted Cape Leeuwin and commenced the mapping of the Australian Coast.

We also made a stop at the Augusta Boat Marina that was created from its own rock quarry. We took a walk to the end and I climbed onto the granite rocks.

Another stop we made was at the water wheel.

• This water wheel was built in 1895 to supply water for the builders of the lighthouse and later to the lighthouse keepers’ cottages. Limestone for the lighthouse was taken from nearby Quarry Bay while the water wheel provided water to mix motor.
• Water was supplied to the wheel by a natural spring located in the wetland near the wheel.   As water flowed over, the wheel revolved activating a ram pump, which piped water to the lighthouse. It operated day and night delivering about one liter at every stroke.
• The water in the spring has dropped over the years and now water to the wheel is pumped by an electric motor to keep it moist and prevent drying and cracking. The wheel is now encrusted in calcified lime.

Finally we went to Cape Leeuwin to see the lighthouse.   The lighthouse was built in 1895. This is the lighthouse that is referred to in the book Light Between the Oceans, but it not actually on an island. Cape Leeuwin is the most south-westerly point of the Australian continent and lies right between the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean.

They were closing when we got there but we did get to hurry out to the lighthouse and stand on the end of the cape between the two oceans. Before we left the end of the cape, the skies opened up and poured on us. This seemed like a fitting time for a rainstorm.

This was another fabulous day with Jan, Lyn, and Rose.