Friday 23 October 2026 Fremantle and our Cruise Day 1
We started our day with a walking tour of the port area of Fremantle.
Fremantle gets its name from Captain Charles Howe Fremantle, the British naval officer who formally claimed the west coast of Australia for the Crown in May 1829. Long before the British arrival, the Whadjuk Noongar people called the area Walyalup (“place of the woylie, a woylie is also known as a brush-tailed bettong).
We were told that the Notre Dame University that seems to occupy a vast area of Fremantle was responsible for a large part of the restoration of the old buildings in Fremantle.
It rained just as we got to the tour meeting point.
We waited inside the Port Authority building with one of our guides, Peta. The tour is run by the Port Authority. She told us that this coming Sunday was the annual Blessing of the Fleet. She told us about 20+ had booked on the tour, 9 of us showed up. The tour is a part of Design Week in Fremantle so it had an architectural theme.
Fremantle port is publically owned, the only mainland port publically owned. The Port was built between 1892 and 1897 and reclaimed 75 acres of the foreshore waters. It was designed and built by an Engineer by the name of C.Y. O’Connor. He was also responsible for building among other things, the water pipeline to Kalgoorlie and the railways in Fremantle.
The sheds along the wharf are all heritage listed and are possibly the only remaining sheds of their kind left anywhere in the world. All are well maintained.
Goods were unloaded into the sheds, inspected and duties collected. Then freighted out by road and rail.
2000 wharfies worked on the docks, a hard job. For the wharfies it was all day work, no part or full time employment, you just show up at the gate and hoped you got chosen to work, work was never guaranteed.
Now about 980,000 containers a year pass through the port. Ships sail in and then are turned around to face out to sea before docking. This is a port safety requirement.
Many of the ships bringing out the subsidised English immigrants of the early 1960’s did their immigration here in Fremantle, Deb & her family came this way. Our guide Michael “may” have been part of the team who did her immigration.
At the end of the tour we went to the old ship building/repair/maintenance area of the port. There we saw the HMAS Ovens. Oberon Class submarine. Funnily enough it was one of the submarines I worked on a long time ago 80s/90s. It was decommissioned in 1995.
The tour finished around 11:15am and we spent a little time walking around the docks then walked into town and to the Fremantle Markets for lunch. The markets were full of colour and activity. It’s seems to be separated into 3 areas, fresh fruit and veg, fresh meals/cooked food and then clothing and trinkets. We had Souvlaki for lunch, it was very good.
After lunch we went back the hotel, chilled for a bit, well quite a bit really.
We were due to board our boat at about 4pm. We arrived back at the port at about 3:35, started boarding at 3:55, on-board with bubbles in the bridge lounge by 4:10pm.
Around 5pm the briefings started and we were given a safety talk and life vest demonstration. This concluded with a brief outline of tomorrows activities. We went to our cabin around 6pm and began unpacking.
By this time we were well under way out of the port and into clear waters. The ocean has a reasonable swell and the boat had a significant roll to it. Deb started feeling unwell. We both had a Quell tablet and made our way to the dining room for dinner. It looked like we were the last to arrive and our seating options were very limited. We found a table in the aft port corner of the dining room with a few spare seats. To our pleasant surprise our table mates were very nice. A couple of farmers from NSW and another couple from country Victoria. We had an enjoyable dinner, sea trout for Deb & sirloin for me, with quite a few laughs and travel stories.
We headed back to our cabin around 8:40 and finished unpacking. As we did the roll of the boat got the better of Deb, she retreated to the bathroom and promptly got rid of her dinner. It wasn’t until we stopped cruising, somewhere around 2:30am, that Deb managed to get to sleep.
Saturday 24 October 2026 Cruise Day 2 Wadandi Boodja. (Eagle Bay)
We had breakfast at 7am, back to our room to freshen up and then we made our way to deck 2 to board one of the explorers. We rode the explorer over to Dunsborough jetty where we all disembarked. Then we did a “hike” along the foreshore of Wadandi Boodja (Eagle Bay) to Castle Rock, and return. There were many native wild flowers out, Deb had a great time taking photos of them and the scenery. I may have actually taken a few myself! A beautiful part of the world. We even got to play a little Ingress, which was a bonus. It was a casual 4km return walk. We got back on the explorer and were back in our cabin around 10:20am.
Not long after we got back Deb noticed a catamaran off our starboard side, it was a whale watching boat, and all the people on it seemed to be looking in our direction. It didn’t take us long before we got a very short glimpse of a whale about 50m away from our boat, it was gone before you could blink!
Late in the morning, Simona, a guest lecturer and marine biologist, gave us a short talk on the places, culture and history of the places we are visiting over the next week or so.
After lunch we had a visit on-board by the owner of Mitu Wines. We tasted 3 different wines, a chenin blanc, chardonnay and a cabernet sauvignon, served with complementary canapés. While we were sipping the wines we were given instructions on how the local indigenous peoples, the Wadandi Boodja, made baskets and the like, and along with the makings, we got to try our hand at weaving. I think we had better keep our day jobs, oh hang on …. lol.
Later again, our expedition leader Dawn, gave us a run down on tomorrows activities. This was followed by drinks with the Captain, where he introduced himself and gave us a brief idea of what lay ahead, (looks like we are in for some more bumpy weather, in a couple of days).
This was followed by dinner then we retired for the day. We have a big foodie day tomorrow in and around Busselton and Margaret River.
Sunday 25 October 2026 Cruise Day 3 Busselton and Margaret River
After breakfast this morning we had a few whale glimpses, may be even a bit more than that. There was one whale a long way off the port side, think half way between our boat and the horizon, and also at more or less the same time it looked like a mother and a calf astern of the boat, and they were probably about 400 to 500m away. A nice way to start the day.
Our days adventures started when we got an explorer off the boat at about 8:30 and had a slow ride to Busselton Marina boat ramp. There we got on a bus, it was then that they discovered there weren’t enough seats on the two buses for everyone, who would have thought two buses weren’t enough seats for around 100+ passengers + crew? They worked something out and our bus left at about 9:27am for the Origins Market.
We arrived at the Origins Markets at around 9:50.
The market is an incubator space for new and emerging businesses . It was Very quiet while we were there, admittedly it was reasonably early on a Sunday morning! There were maybe 30 shops open while we were there, the more interesting ones were a 3-d printing shop (printing toys etc ), an Art shop with the artist working on an intricate work with pen and magnifying glass , there was a working bee hive and a gin distillery.
Lots of shops were shut! Deb watered a very sick plant at one unattended stall, we walked past it not long before we left and it looked like it was picking up.
We were back on a replacement bus at 10.25 and on our way to Providore at 10:30. We arrived at 11:05. The business was like a big farm shop. They made everything from wine to jams/chutneys to cordial and chocolate, and a whole lot in between. We were all given a scone with jam and cream when we arrived and then encouraged to explore the gardens and grounds and shop. The scone and jam were very good. We bought some marmalade and chocolate while we were there. The main business was started 20 years ago,, but the chocolate factory had been there for 25 years.
We were back on the bus at 11:50 with our chocolate and marmalade, on our way to Howard Park Wines. We arrived at their Wine Chapel (a function centre) at 12:05 and has a wine tasting – 6 wines in all – a sparkling Chardonnay , a Riesling, a Grenache/Shiraz, a Shiraz and a Cab Sav. We both found their wines to be ok. In our briefing yesterday we were told we would have platters for lunch. There were large platters on a table in the wine tasting room, full of beautiful looking fruit, wafer biscuits and pretzels, no protein to be seen anywhere!
We had a bit of a walk around the grounds, and through their main wine tasting cellar door.
We left Howard Park Wines at 1:05pm and headed to Vasse Virgin. Arrived there at 1:15, and were split into two groups for the two activities planned for us. We started with the food option, where we tried some olive oil, dukkha, jams/preserves and olives. All very tasty. The second rotation was a demonstration of their olive oil based soaps, lotions and other products. We passed on that and had a look around the shop. We bought some fancy dish cloths.
We left Vasse Virgin at about 2:05pm bound for Busselton.
We got to the boat ramp at 2:45 and our ride back to the boat was waiting for us. We left at 2:50 , the blinds were put down on the port/weather side of the explorer, an ominous warning of what was to come. It was a bumpy very slow, but dry, ride back. The swell was at least 0.5m and increasing, our boat was flat bottomed, read no wave piercing capability. The port side of the explorer was constantly splashed, we all would have been soaked if the blinds hadn’t been put down. We were back on board at 3:30, Afternoon tea was waiting for us in the Bridge Deck lounge.
We had our daily briefing at 4:40 for what was going to happen tomorrow. Plans have changed due to the weather ahead of us, it isn’t pretty, the weather that is. The new plan was for our boat to stay right where it is and we will do a Cape Naturaliste lighthouse walk/hike to Sugar Rock, followed by a wine tasting on-board in the afternoon from a company, Subsea Estate, that ages its wine in barrels in the ocean. I understand they are primarily an abalone fishing company with what started out as a wine side hustle.
So tomorrow will be another adventure with the hope of the weather breaking and smooth waters in the areas we have plans to sail in the next week, time will tell.
Monday 26 October 2026 Cruise Day 4 Kwirreejeenungup! aka Cape Naturaliste
Kwirreejeenungup is the name given to this area by the Wadandi Noongar people, means the place with beautiful views to the north. Europeans “discovered” this area in 1801, French explorer Nicolas Baudin, and he named it Cape Naturaliste. The cape was an important landmark for sailors navigating the treacherous waters of the area. The lighthouse was built in 1904 9verlooking Geographe Bay.
We left the boat on the first of the explorers at 8:20 for our morning walk/hike from the lighthouse to Sugarloaf Rock. The swell was a bit lower than yesterday afternoon but still rocky and making it a slow run to shore.
We arrived at 8:30 and boarded a bus for the short run up to the lighthouse.
We hopped off the bus and walked up to have a look at the lighthouse and views. The lighthouse wasn’t open so we couldn’t climb it. We had a quick, even for us, look through the museum and then started our walk at about 9:30.
It was a beautiful walk. The scenery is amazing, so nice to be out walking in nature. The bush and coastal views were as good as they get. I saw a glimpse of a small wallaby in the scrub up the hill, and we saw quite a few birds, most of which were small and fast moving. The coastline here is very picturesque, sandy beaches rugged rocky outcrops and a beautiful blue oceans with well shaped waves streaming into shore. I heard the area is a favourite for surfers in the right conditions was easy to see why.
Left Sugarloaf Rock at about 10:55 and we’re back at the explorer by about 11:10 for our slow ride back to the boat.
We arrived back at 11:40. Lunch was a buffet
I managed to do my ironing before lunch and Deb got hers done after lunch.
At around 2:15pm I went to the Bridge Deck lounge for a talk and tasting by Subsea Estate, with servings of Green-Lip Abalone and Lobster rolls.
Brad and Jody Adams of Subsea Estate are commercial fishers, 3rd generation (their son is 4th generation) who harvested Green-Lip Abalone. To make their business sustainable they shifted to abalone ranching. Where juvenile abalone released onto the world’s largest artificial abalone reef. After 3 years the abalone are large enough to harvest. They then harvest the abalone. At its peak their company harvested around 90 tonnes of abalone a year ( about 2 million abalone), or about 20% of the worlds premium green-lip abalone 10
The ranch is on about 23km of artificial habitats, some 10,000 manmade structures. They can harvest 800kg of abalone a day in 18m deep waters. It was a fascinating and amusing talk about their ranch business.
They then moved onto discussing and presenting their wines. It’s the southern hemisphere’s first open‑ocean winery, using patented French “subsea fermentation” technology. Essentially polymer barrels that are filled with wine, yeast and sugar is added, the oxygen is removed fro the vat and it is sealed before being fixed to the ocean floor Where a secondary fermentation takes place within the vats as they are continuously subjected to the movement of the ocean currents. After about six months the vats are retrieveda and the wine is filtered and stabilised before either being mixed with land matured wine or bottled as a “pure” ocean wine.
We tried 4 wines, the first wine was a Semillon – a land and ocean blend. Ocean movement cuts the sharpness of the Semillon. The 2nd wine – 100% Subsea Semillon – much smoother and rounded, the 3rd wine – a land ocean Shiraz – a typical Margaret River Shiraz with the edge taken off it a bit and the 4th wine – unfiltered subsea Shiraz. All the tannins are rounded smooth , very drinkable. I like this wine the most of the 4.
They also produce wines that are matured at 20m under water for (I think) six months. To do this the bottles have to be stronger than usual wine bottles and they have to protect the cork from the influence of sea water. We didn’t get to try these, but they seem more of a novelty to me. All up they produce around 100,000bottles of wine a year and are looking to scale up their operations. It was a fun tasty afternoon.
At 5:15 we had our update for tomorrow by Dawn, our expedition leader. Overnight we will move about 150km into, finally, 2.4m seas with improving waters. We will have a big day off ship at Leeuwin Estate Wines.
Number of Views :11