Follow The Journey: South West WA - The Itinery

Photo Taken of Zachariah's cute little chubby feet at Bunbury, WA

I have spent the last 2wks planning for our trip to WA after hours. Some nights, Mr M & I would sleep at 1-2am just looking for the best accommodation.

Nonetheless, thanks to some thorough planning, we managed to pull together a 5 day itinery to South Western Australia to make our first ever family of 3 holiday a very memorable one.

Here are some useful links & attractions you may want to visit yourself:

1) Cheap Perth Car Rentals (only recommended if you're using around the city & not for long distance travel) as the limited km deals are super cheap - Bayswater Car Rental

2) Once you have a car, the world is your oyster. You will then need a map of Western Australia to identify exactly where you want to go. For us, the choice was easy, we wanted to go down to the Margaret River region, home of Australia's finest wineries & gourmet food. So Australia's South West region it was! here is a map of all the cities/attractions in South West of WA. For a more micro offering of the Margaret River region, visit its website here. You can also download the official information map of Margaret River local attractions and all its wineries here (Map Front).

3) Accommodation Bookings - We used a variety of websites to finally find the best deals for our accommodation bookings in each of the cities we wanted to stay in. I usually start with wotif.com.au to get an idea of each of the accommodation venues available in each city. But I never book with them as I find them more expensive than other sites that I've found or if you actually go directly with the hotels.

So the ones we used were:

> Discover West - This website packages accommodation deals with breakfast/coupons/freebies etc. So sometimes the value is much better than if you went direct/with wotif.com.au
> Stayz - is a fantastic website where they advertise private property's up for holiday rentals all around Australia. So if you want a cheaper alternative to cater for a large crowd of people (say around 4-8ppl), then I would highly recommend this site as it's much cheaper than going to hotels/motels/caravan park/lodges

Finally, here was our itinery for a jam packed 5 days drive to the South West of WA:

Day 1: Perth > Mandurah (lunch) > Bunbury (famous for Dolphins) > Busselton (famous for its 1.8km stretched Jetty) > Dunsborough- Stay at Wyndham Vacation Resort Dunsborough ($99 per night special rate for a kingsized balcony view!)

Day 2: Breakfast at Dunsborough town - we visited Tealicious House for breakkie. They do an amazing Masala Chai Latte for all you tea lovers! Dunsborough marks the beginning of the Margaret River Winery Region) > First stop was Lamont Winery near Yallingup > Amberley Estate Winery (Which is probably Mr M's favourite winery as it boasts really beautiful picturesque views & atmosphere) > Natural Olive Oil & Soap Factory > went back onto Cave Road to Brookland Valley Estate (which is home to my most favourite Australian White Wine - Verse 1 - Savignon Blanc 2007 & also won winery of the year 2009). I was super excited about visiting this winery b/c I wanted to see where my Aussie white wine's origin was from & boy I was not disappointed > Vasse Felix another grand winery to visit > Then up diagonally to taste test everything that is NOT wine at Margaret River Providore (home of nice olive oils, pestos, vinegrette etc), Margaret River Chocolate Factory, Margaret River Nuts & Cereal Factory, Margaret River Dairy Company for some cheese & yoghurt testing and last stop of the day before the sun disappeared was to Margaret River Fudge Factory which is in the heart of Margaret River town. We also managed to find a really beautiful accommdation using stayz website which is called The Loft & is basically an extension of someone's home in the middle of no where but green plain fields & 3mins drive from the beach. We absolutely fell in love with this place! I managed to negotiate with the owner via email for $100 per night! She even threw in a little single bed for Zach too! Bargain!

Day 3: Drive around Prevally Park Coastal region to overlook the horizon onto Gracetown > Make our way to Walpole (famous for rainforest & treetop walk which we didn't think it was appropriate for myself or Z to go - but will do so the next time we're here) > Denmark (Wilson Inlet, Greens Pool/Elephant Rocks/Madfish Bay in - William Bay National Park btw Denmark & Bow Bridge) > Finally make our way to Albany to stay at All Seasons Hotel which we managed to book for $69 per night inclusive of buffet breakfast for the 2 of us! BARGAIN!

Day 4: Explore Albany - Here is a useful tourist map of the town > This is undoubtedly my favourite city in South West of WA. The whole time we were there, the rainbow appeared at every angle of the town. It was just so pretty!
To start off the day, visit Mt Clarence Lookout to see a 360' view of the town, drive along the tourist scenic road on Marine Drive > head to Emu Point for some fish & chips > leave Albany town to Windmill Farm coastal lookout point > Go to Torndirrup National Park to see Natural Bridge/Blowhole/The Gap/Stony Hill/ Salmon Holes (This was truly a highlight of the trip for me!) > Soak in the peaceful view at nearby Frenchman Bay > Go to Mutton Bird lookout onto the island & Hanging Rock > Go to the most Southern tip of Western Australia at West Cape Howe (warning, you need to drive on dirt road to get to the end of the look out) > Finally, make our way back to Middleton Beach in the heart of Albany to catch the sunset > Stay at All Season's Hotel.

Day 5: Farewell Albany - Drive back to Perth on Albany Highway at 9:30am - arriving at 1:30pm (4hrs non-stop).

We will definitely be back again! Next time it will be on a family fishing trip with the whole clan!