This month’s words are
Far Reaching
Panoramic
Scenic
All Encompassing
Wide-ranging
Simple, but tricky! I’ve searched through my archives and here’s my pick.
Thanks to Paula @ Lost in Translation for this fun and interesting challenge. It’s great to see other bloggers selections too, which I had a peak at first to get inspiration before I did mine!
Over the next couple of days we had many outings planned, wineries, breweries, new and old restaurants, shopping and of course cards would be on the agenda.
Our first stop was a new brewery in town called Southcamp. We enjoyed a delicious lunch with wine and ciders.
They couldn’t resist the temptation to pick up the bats.
Then it was back to the house and straight down to the beach with bathers on. I was definitely going to get in today. Viv and I had a long walk past the sand bank and along the water. Actually quite strenuous pushing through the water. As it’s so shallow I dragged myself back in on my stomach just using my arms, commando style, quite hilarious to watch and very ungraceful.
It took at least twenty shots before I managed the last position.
Before going out for dinner we had time for a few games of cards, glass of wine and snacks on the verandah.
Dinner was in town at a restaurant called Blue Manna Bistro. It was a place I’ve been trying to go for the longest time. We nearly didn’t get in though as the booking hadn’t gone through, but the manager kindly set up a table on the deck outside. Although only a Wednesday night, this place was buzzing.
I’m very happy we managed to get a table as this meal was truly scrumptious.
We were up again early the next day and we took a long walk along the beach footpath.
I had fun with the last photo here, although there were complaints about how uncomfortable it was.
Some more sculptures to play around with, my turn this time!
The gap in the sculpture makes a perfect frame.
Then onto our favourite restaurant, Meelup Farm, which I’ve posted about before.
Wise Winery was our next stop, apparently the only winery in Australia with a sea view. We had coffee here and stocked up on wine.
All too soon it was time to pack up and head back to Perth, but not before stopping for breakfast on the way home.
The four of us all agreed we had an excellent few days. Hopefully we will be able to do the same next year.
Prior to European colonisation, the land was populated by Indigenous people, the tribe along the coast was called Wardandi (sea people). These Indigenous peoples referred to Dunsborough by the name of Quedjinup, which means “Place of Women”
The modern town is named after the nearby Dunn Bay, which was named after Captain Richard Dalling Dunn under whom Governor James Stirling had served in the Hibernia and the Armide in 1810–11.
A general store was opened in 1925 and the town’s first bakery was established in 1930. It seems there wasn’t a school until 1963. During the 1960’s surfing became very popular and the ideal conditions brought many tourists to the region. Source: Wikipedia
Thanks for coming along with the fab four on our journey to Dunsborough
😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎
I always like to go on a Hop on Hop off bus whenever I’m in a new city, it’s a good way of seeing everything and hopping off whenever something takes your interest. So today that’s what we decided to do, I had a few places in mind I wanted to visit. Dublin Castle, Phoenix Park and the Guiness Store. We walked over to Dublin Castle but didn’t go inside and then onto the City Hall.
Dublin City Hall was built between 1769 and 1779 and was originally used as a financial centre by the merchants of Dublin. Twelve columns support the dome of the Rotunda and the mosaic floor depicts the Coat of Arms of Dublin. A truly breathtaking building.
After this we hopped on our bus and our first stop was Teeling’s Distillery, not somewhere we had planned on going but our driver said there was a lovely coffee shop there, so we decided on a quick stop.
While we were drinking our coffee a very dapper old gentleman came up to us and wished us a “top of the morning, ladies”. He said he hoped we would be going upstairs for a proper coffee, and then introduced himself as John Teeling, the man himself. When we said we were not whiskey drinkers (blasphemy, indeed) he insisted that we follow him immediately. With that we were whisked through the entrance, no ticket required and he proceeded to give us a private tour, we actually interrupted a fully paid up tour and our man introduced us all to everyone.
While he was giving us a very in depth talk of how the place started and the way whiskey is made, I took photos of the beautiful artwork adorning the walls.
Entering the distilling plant itself we were met with a very earthy aroma! We peeked inside the fermenting mixer and watched the grains being mashed.
Next up was the distillery room itself, where the whiskey is distilled in the vast copper pots. Mr. Teeling proudly showed us the three huge copper pots with brass name plates and lo and behold there was one name after me! Well not me personally but his granddaughter.
Moving on to the bar itself, I think Mr. Teeling’s favourite place, judging by his enthusiasm to get us up there and insisting that we have an Irish Coffee. As we sat at the bar watching the barman make us very extravagant coffees, I was hoping fervently that our man wouldn’t stand around and make us drink every drop.
I managed a quarter, which was good going as I’ve never drank whiskey in my life.
We all agreed that this was a highlight of our trip, we’ve obviously still got that certain je ne sais quoi!
Phoenix Park was next up our our tour, but when we arrived the bus driver turned at the start of the park and drove back! Deciding it was far too long to make the trek to the entrance we had a quick walk and waited for the next bus.
Getting off at the Epic Centre we had a quick coffee stop and then proceeded to walk along the river, over the Sean O’Casey Bridge and back to our hotel.
Sculptures depicting the Great Famine – 1845 to 1852, a period of starvation and disease due to the potato blight. A truly terrible time to be alive.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these three days in Dublin with me, I have many more photos but will post these another day! I think enough is enough at this stage. I’ll finish with one last quote:
This week Patti at P.A. Moed has set the challenge of “Going Wide”. This means taking photos with the wide angle lens on your camera. Most of the time I use my Galaxy S10 which has three cameras including the wide angle lens. I find that it generally takes very good photos. I do own a Canon Powershot but to take above average shots I think I would need a tripod.
Below are some I’ve taken over the years.
A challenge I haven’t taken part in for a while. As the weather is so good in Perth at the moment I thought I would post some wonderful views from the past.
Taken just a few weeks ago during our trip to Pemberton. Although I have to say this bench doesn’t look comfortable in the slightest!
Further North for this one, Badgingarra, WA, on the hunt for wild flowers.
Overlooking Meelup Brook, Nautraliste, WA
Thanks Xingfumama for hosting this lovely challenge
It was Maddy’s Birthday today and a day out at the River Tamar Wineries was on the itinerary. After letting them have a bit of a lie in from their late night, we set off around 11 am. We took the West Tamar Highway and our first stop was Grindelwald. From the name you can would be correct in thinking it was modelled on a Swiss village. Built in 1989 by Roelf Vos, a Dutch immigrant to Tasmania, for his wife after they visited Switzerland. The story is that she loved Switzerland so much the he built a village just for her!
As you can see the weather has cleared up beautifully.
There is a hotel here and a few activities for kids around. It’s very quaint but I don’t think I could spend a night here.
Our next stop was Marion’s Vineyard, established in 1979 by a Cypriot and Californinan couple with stunning views across the Tamar. There is no restaurant here but there is a beautiful area to enjoy a bottle of wine and a cheese platter. As we had reservations for lunch elsewhere we just did the wine tasting. If you buy a bottle the tasting is free. We had acquired quite a taste for Tasmanian wine so we did buy a few bottles between us.
It was such an interesting winery with lots of quirky decor in a taverna type setting.
This painting was on the wall inside the bar area and I just loved it. Can you recognise all these characters? Hubby knew them all of course, Laurence and Maddy had no idea, I knew most.
A stained glass image of the barn at night. The barn is pictured in the featured image.
From here we drove to our lunch venue, Timbre Kitchen, located in Velo Wines. When our waitress handed us the menu we wanted to order nearly everything on it! It all looked so delicious and of course once again I forgot to take photos of the food.
After a most enjoyable lunch, there was still enough time left to visit another winery for some more tasting! With so many wineries to choose from it was hard to pick just one. In the end we opted for The Swinging Gate. We were lucky to get a table as it was very popular with the wine tours, bookings are recommended. This time we were served at the table for different tastings and given a sheet of paper to mark down our verdicts.
I thought the “waste not want not” attitude to various items of furniture was a great idea, hence the doors on the wall.
And really that was all we had time for, most of the wineries close at 4pm. A relaxing drive back to Launceston and tonight was our last night in Tasmania.
Our luck ran out today weatherwise, but that didn’t mean we were going to alter our plans for a trip to Cataract Gorge. We were looking forward to riding on the famous chairlift, built in 1972, it has a total span of 457 m (1,499 ft).
The first stop on today’s itinerary was the Queen Victoria Art Museum. When we visited there was a wonderful exhibition called Skin by Garry Greenwood. This featured stunning leather artworks with an array of masks, sculptures and musical instruments. A permanent feature at this museum is The First Tasmanians exhibition. I found this very interesting and learnt so much about survival and how they lived their day to day life.
From here we made our way to Cataract Gorge, stopping at Penny Royal Adventures for a quick look around. By now the rain had set in, poor Maddy found out her raincoat was not waterproof!
Penny Royal Adventures is a great place for kids, there were a couple of rides and of course the suspension bridge. I thought at first this was the bridge that I saw mentioned at Cataract Gorge! I really wasn’t that keen to try it. We saw a family walking along it with helmets on. From here we walked around to the Zig Zag trail and started our walk along the Gorge.
It is believed that the final formation of Cataract Gorge began with the last ice age, approximately 3 to 4 million years ago. The rock formations are commonly believed to be from volcanic activity.
On a good day there would be so much to do, explore the gardens and look at the beautiful peacocks strutting about, search for wallabies in the bush and maybe have a swim in the massive open air swimming pool. We did see a few bedraggled peacocks and glimpses of wallabies through the rocks. It was mostly just a case of putting one foot forward and marching on.
We finally reached the Alexandra suspension bridge after around 40 minutes and the weather showed no signs of improving. The bridge was built in 1904 and named after Queen Alexandra and is 220 ft long.
It is kind of shaky! We didn’t venture all the way across, I think we had lost our bearings somewhere along the way and wanted to make our way to the chairlift. Hubby was against the chairlift and said it would be totally miserable and wanted to walk back the same way. By this time Maddy had already set off in search of it! It was three against one and so the chairlift it was.
I only managed one photo on the chairlift of Laurence and Maddy in front of us! I have to say it was not the most enjoyable ride I’ve ever taken. When we “disembarked” we ordered an uber to take us to the pub we had seen just past the Penny Royal, Kings Bridge Pub. Here we had a well deserved lunch, a few drinks and a couple of games of pool.
The pub was a great find with very traditional old English decor, what more could you ask for on a rainy day.
Then it was back to the hotel to dry off and a rest for me before heading out for dinner that night. We all decided that it was a fantastic day out despite the weather.
We at at Stello’s Restaurant which was just a short walk from the hotel.
