KEY POINTS:
Some people are never satisfied. As we spiral up the stairs inside the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse at the northern tip of Western Australia's Margaret River region, the woman behind me is saying, "There are no whales in the world. I've been everywhere, people say I'll see them and I've never yet laid eyes on a single one. They don't exist!"
When we get to the top and emerge, blinking in the bright sunshine, on to the narrow balcony to look out over the sparkling Indian Ocean, there they are: a pod of humpbacked whales, lolling in the waves. The woman is briefly silent - awed, I presume - and then says, "Is that it? No jumping out of the water? Tch." As moments go, it's less than golden.
It passes my husband by. He is still slightly stunned from seeing Graham Henry leaving as we arrive at the lighthouse. He shouldn't have been surprised. There are plenty of Kiwis who, unfazed by the seven-hour flight to Perth from Auckland, buzz down the South Western Highway into this deservedly famous wine region and discover it has other treasures, too. Most of them, like this lovely old stone lighthouse, are clustered along the coast and one is even almost 2km out at sea.
Boomerang-shaped Busselton Jetty is the longest wooden pier in the Southern Hemisphere and makes New Zealand's 660m Tolaga Bay Jetty look stunted. It takes at least half an hour to walk to the end, more if you stop to see what's bending the rods of the fishermen. This morning it's squid, shiny brown and lime green. They are being handled extra cautiously and I wonder why, until I hear the loud splat as one squirts out black ink for over a metre. The weathered boards of the old jetty are spattered and stained, proof of years of small triumphs.
Along the southern side is a line of brass plaques set into the wood, memorials to people who spent many happy hours on this jetty, and whose ashes have been scattered from it.
At the end is the Underwater Observatory, where we descend through a spacious cylinder until we are 8m below sea level.
Through the 100cm-thick windows we can see many of the 300 subtropical species that live in the warm waters under the jetty: bright corals and sponges growing on the piles and all sorts of striped and spotted Nemo-types darting through them. I watch a school of silvery bonito hanging in the limpid blue above me and listen to the radioed clicks and moans of fishy chatter.
There are more sounds of nature that night as the frogs living in the lake at Quay West Resort, Bunker Bay burst into a croaking chorus.
Next morning I sit on the terrace eating the best muesli of my life and look out over the classically curved bay where, when the salmon are running, the brimming nets are hauled on to the beach by 4WDs.
The weather is beautiful and when Sean comes to take us on his Cape Discovery Tour he says, "You know how people say you should have been here the other day? Well, today's that day!"
His enthusiasm is infectious as he drives us through rolling green countryside and down a bumpy farm track past a mob of big kangaroos sprawled in the shade, to the Margaret River. He pushes a green canoe out under the flaking paperbarks and we glide along the still river between thickly wooded banks. Kookaburra calls echo through the trees, wild bees hum, lampreys flit though the green water. It's blissfully relaxing.
In contrast, when we drive down to the beach near the river mouth, it's all action. At Surfer's Point the waves are big, close and busy with boards. A man is speaking urgently into his mobile, "Mate, it's the best break I've ever seen. You gotta get out here!" Beyond the surfers, more humpbacked whales are cruising along the coast.
We wander through the woods, hear Aboriginal legends and taste honey beneath the trees it was made from: jarrah, peppermint gum and karri. We have lunch at one of the area's 350 vineyards, a private picnic among the barrels at Fraser Gallop Estate, then attempt to walk it off along a section of the Cape to Cape Track. The trees are bent away from the sea, there are splashes of yellow, white, pink, purple and blue wildflowers in the green grass and the air is scented. We sit on 60 million-year-old rocks above the red Willyabrup cliffs.
"All we need now," I say, "is a whale leaping out there in the waves."
Right on cue, a black tail rises in slow-motion out of the calm, blue water and then disappears again in a crash of white spray. Now that's what I call a golden moment.
Pamela Wade travelled to Margaret River as a guest of Tourism Western
Australia.
