Hail To The Bus Driver

I awake to the patter of rain on wet fabric. I groggily poke my head out of the tent and I'm greeted by a moat. A good half inch of water surrounds the tent. Bloody hell, doesn't it ever stop?

Rather than waste the day moping around the campsite, Dave has booked us on a bus tour of the Margaret River wineries. I'm apprehensive because I've observed similar tours in other regions and what I saw looked dreadful. Tourists would silently exit a coach, the driver watching them like a prison warden. They would go through the motions of tasting wine, stare with disinterest at the scenery, silently get back onto the coach, and depart for the next nameless winery. There was a zombie like quality to their behaviour. I'm not looking forward to becoming one of the living dead.

My discomfort increases when the bus arrives. There is a young couple already seated who briefly look at us before returning to stare at the dismal weather. The next pickups are two girls who immediately retreat into their mobile phones. I can feel the fog of boredom descending already.

We reach the first winery and the guide begins his spiel. He is a dancing ball of energy. He cracks jokes, tells stories, describes the wines, gets everybody talking, and even has the whole bus singing along to cheesy 80s pop music. I was completely wrong; this is heaps of fun. That I'm slightly mashed might also be helping.

The tour takes us to four wineries, a cheese factory, and a chocolate factory. There is a "bush tucker" lunch in the middle although I don't think pesto and olive bread are authentic bush tucker. However I did confirm my suspicion that witchetty grubs have a disgusting texture and taste. The tour ends at a brewery where Dave demonstrates his talent to burp loudly after sculling a pint, much to the amusement of the undergrad girls who joined the tour at the first winery.