Margaret River and Ironman WA

A couple of weekends ago Jason and I decided to spend a weekend out of town for a bit of a break and also watch Ironman WA as well. This break was to ceelbrate out 5th year wedding anniversary, my birthday and winning a world championship medal (Since we didn't do anything to celebrate these at the time).

Therefore we decided to stay somewhere really nice. After a couple of good searches on the internet we decided on Windmills Break. Windmills is a 5 start luxury small hotel near Dunsborough that doesn't cater for children and only ever has a maximum of 20 guests.

The facilities were great, we had a beautiful swimming pool (below), and as part of our room rate we got cooked breakfast, unlimited internet, choice of about 120 movies, free port and chocolates, a gym, tennis court and all day afternoon tea. Check this beautiful pool out, it was lovely to swim in and the gardens were just stunning as well:

We arrived in Dunsborough on the Thursday night and after a nice sleep in we headed out for a good lunch at Amberley Estate Winery. It was a nice lunch and although it was 30+ degrees we had a great time. The gardens at Amberley were really lovely and cooled the air off due to the leafy greenness.

After the winery we went to the beach at Dunsborough, here I am talking on the phone and cooling off in the multicoloured water! (I thought I would add a photo of me as I am never on here)
After lunch we headed back to Windmills for some down time, which was great. We just relaxed.... for the first time in ages. As we had just been able to replace out camera I thought it would be great to try and get a nice sunset shot (as the night before there was a wicked sky). Alas, the Friday night sky was no where near as spectacular at all... after I made Jason speed to try and get to the viewing spot! We took a couple of shots though... but nothing spectacular. It reminds me that so much about photography is about being in the right place at the right time... and unfortunately we just missed the right night this time. I wasn't too worried as I have many a sunset to photograph.


The next day was Ironman Western Australia and we had some old friends from New Zealand (Angela, Anna and Terry) and some new friends from Perth (Nera, Lisa, and Geoff) racing. We also had some friend to hang out with to spectate as well... Here they are... Rich, his sister and his girlfriend.
They had a paddling pool, which we had to fill with buckets and about 30 trips to the beach. Here's Jas with the girls and the water gun.
Lots of the men racing said that the girls gave them a second wind while racing.
It was a good day of spectating, I did have a pang or two about not racing but as the day soared into the 30's I changed my mind hehehe. I enjoyed seeing Ange do an Ironman Personal Best and Nera qualifying for Kona. Here I am running with Ange and Anna in my dress and barefeet. Lucky the roads are smooth over here, but the black asphalt was hot!!!
On the Sunday morning I went for a run, hoping to be out for about 16km but unfortunately I got a little lost and ended up running 22km and getting a bit dehydrated. After the run Jason and I went off and took a few more shots of local scenery (taking our car off road to a few hidden spots as well).
Here's Jason just passing the time of day... I LOVE this shot of Jason. He thinks its stupid though!
And here is my best ever wave shot. Its sooooooooo hard to get good wave shots but I managed to get this one curling over! Our new lens makes the shots look wicked. Well worth the upgrade.
Finally a couple of shots of the rocks for you all (can you tell that I am happy to have my camera back!)
After we got home we put up the Christmas tree, which just topped off a wicked weekend away. How cool is our tree! Its fiber optic as well and I love it!
That's all from our weekend away. Till next time!