An Afternoon of Wine Tasting
I spent the first morning walking on the beach checking out the area. I walked a few miles in each direction and checked out the amazing scenery. The beaches are so peaceful and the water is so clear, you can see the bottom of the ocean hundreds of yards off the shore. While I was walking and on some phone calls the kids and Ilise were back at the house doing a workout organized by Karley. Karley has been working out with Drew about 4-5 days a week and now Noah and Ilise are starting to join her. I might do the same in the coming weeks, we’ll see.
After lunch we took the kids to Margarets Forest, the apartment complex where Astrid and her husband, Murray, manage the property. The kids spent the afternoon in the apartment alone as Ilise, Karley and I went on a wine tasting tour. The kids we all set to accomplish their assignments for the day and then spend some time with Emma, Astrid’s daughter. Ilise, Karley and I set out to find a few wineries expecting that the kids would do most of what we asked.
Our first winery was called WaterShed, where we tasted about 10 different wines. I only tested a few since I was driving and I did spill most of the wine out. I can’t say the same for Ilise and Karley. They were tasting away and enjoying most of the wines. After WaterShed we headed to one of the top brands in the area, Voyager. We entered the winery and there were manicured gardens everywhere. The place was immaculate! There was even a walkway with arching vines arched across the top. It seemed like an amazing place to have a wedding, which I’m sure they do often.
We did some tasting at Voyager and enjoyed that as well. Our wine tasting assistant was a young lady from Italy but she seemed very Australian. She was really nice and helpful. Ilise and Karley liked the wines but we decided not to purchase anything since we still had some other wineries to visit.
We left Voyager and headed to the most famous winery in the area called Leeuwin. We entered the grounds of the winery and there was an outdoor temporary theater set up for concerts. It must be nice to see a concert at this facility, the road in was close to a mile long. We walked up a flight of stairs to the tasting area and met Jamie, our wine tasting host. Jamie was really nice and we stayed there for a while. We talked about wine and life and laughed a lot. By this point Karley and Ilise had consumed a fair bit of alcohol. We liked two of the wines we tasted and decided to purchase a couple of bottles to take home. Downstairs below the winery was an art showroom. All of the labels from Leeuwin use artist drawings to make them unique. The art was pretty nice but it was time to start getting back to the kids.
We decided to stop at one more winery on our way back called Xanadu. We arrived at the tasting hall and Jeremy awaited us. We were the only ones there and it seemed like we were interrupting Jeremy’s quiet afternoon. He was very funny and engaging, telling us that he wasn’t able to serve us any wines because we were in the wrong place, but he was just kidding. Turns out that Jeremy is a surfer for 6 months of the year and works at the winery for the other 6 months to support his habit. He has spent the past few years on the island of Madagascar because it is so quiet and you can surf by yourself just about every day. He said the same is true of Margaret River, on any given day you can find amazing surf on a beach and be the only one there. Pretty nice life I would say!
We left Xanadu and headed back to Astrid’s apartments to pick up the kids. It turns out that they spent much of the afternoon having a dance party and didn’t quite accomplish all the work we had hoped. That is the last time they will be doing their schoolwork alone! It was fun to have Karley with us and I’m glad we did it, but from here on out we are not going to let the kids study alone, we need to get their schoolwork done before we get back in June.
All in all, it was a wonderful day and it was not yet complete. I had my Success Redefined peer group meeting starting that evening at 11:30 PM here lasting until 3 AM. I took a short nap around 8 PM and woke up around 11 to go park the car by the beach so I could Skype into the meeting. It was a great meeting and I was totally engaged even though it was the middle of the night for me. I’m very excited about what I’m learning from this pilot group and am looking forward to what the program becomes in the coming years.
To a life well lived!
Larry Kesslin 