Thomas has mentioned the fact that many of our blogs are "punctuated" (his exact word) by mention of beer or other types of alcohol. In an attempt to disabuse people of the idea that we are a pair of alkies, I had intended to keep such sordid details to ourselves in future. But what can one do when the main topic of a blog is a visit to a brewery?

Before all that, however, came our departure from the nirvana of Laura's house (and proper kitchen and bedroom) as we headed south once more. We had debated which route to take and based our final decision on the fact that the weather was meant to be better on the coast than inland. All that the forecast mentioned was the possibility of showers.

Hmmm…

As we drove past Bunbury, the rain started lashing down so strongly you could see it being driven sideways across the road by the gale-force wind. At the same time, a local radio presenter was describing this maelstrom as an "isolated shower". He should have looked out of the window instead of reading off his print-out. Either that, or the locals are used to such weather.

We were naturally a little worried about camping in our new tent in such weather, but by the time we reached Busselton the rain had ceased. Perhaps the presenter should have described it as an "isolated storm"? The tent, by the way, was not only simple to put up, but looked like a proper tent rather than a bin bag stretched over a couple of sticks - which is what its predecessor had resembled by the end of its life. Mind you, even the best tent couldn't have stopped it being bloody cold inside at night!

We decided to stay in Busselton for the simple reason that it has a 9-hole golf course. This probably doesn't sound like much of an attraction to most people, but made perfect sense to us. We plan to play the world's longest golf course when we cross the Nullarbor Plain in a few weeks, so we need to practise. My wrist was still hurting after my pathetic session on the range in Perth so I didn't want to play a full round. Neither did Katy because she finds 18 holes a struggle, particularly with her knee.

So we dragged ourselves to the local par-3 course to see if we could manage to hit the ball in roughly the right direction. To our surprise, we played pretty well considering our ailments and the fact that we were playing with rented, poorish quality clubs. I triumphed in stroke play with a score of 35 and took the matchplay title on the last hole. Our best moments included my chip in for birdie on the fifth and Katy had a couple of pars. Not bad for a pair of virtual cripples.

In the morning we headed for Busselton's main tourist attraction - a jetty which measures an impressive 1.8 km in length. Unfortunately, it was undergoing extensive renovations so only the first 200 metres was accessible. It also meant we couldn't access the underwater observatory at the end of the jetty which is meant to be pretty good.

From Busselton we passed through Dunsborough and up to Cape Naturaliste. We walked some of the trails which wound for several km around the lighthouse. The area is famous for the whales which pass through on their way south. We saw a couple in the far distance, but they were nowhere near as visible as those we had seen around Shark Bay.

We weren't the only ones scanning the waters in vain. We watched a whale-watching boat circle around in a fruitless attempt to locate anything. Through the binoculars, we could see the boat heaving up and down in the heavy swell. Remembering our own experience whale-watching in Kaikoura in New Zealand, we were extremely glad we weren't on board!

One thing I haven't mentioned is the change in scenery since we reached Perth. Rather than endless miles of red earth, covered with scorched and sparse vegetation, we seemed to have been transported miraculously to southern England or perhaps a part of New Zealand. The terrain had become overwhelmingly green and tended, with farms dotted around the rolling hills. Small woods and lakes served to break up the farmland. We were discussing this as we drove back from the cape when all of a sudden a kangaroo began bounding towards us along the road. It was nice to be reminded that we were, after all, in Australia.

Right, on to the beer…

This part of Western Australia is renowned for its vineyards, but also contains several small breweries which are famous for their ales. As we had been on a wine tour in New Zealand we decided not to repeat ourselves. However, it would have been rude not to sample at least something of what the region had to offer, of course, so it was merely a question of which establishment. There was also the matter of getting there and back because they are all located out in the country rather than in the middle of towns.

We therefore decided to head for the Bush Shack because we found out that it was close enough to Yallingup to walk - especially if we chose the rather dilapidated campsite on the edge of town rather than the much better one down on the beach. Putting aside our usual preferences, we went for the one nearer the brewery.

We had been told that it was 6-7 km away, but a test drive in the car had revealed it to be exactly 4 km. We set off at around 10.00 and by 10.35 we were in the bar - proving that there is a good reason to be fit.

The Bush Shack normally has eight beers on draught as well as several strange wine-based concoctions. Unfortunately, three of the beers were unavailable - a relatively common occurrence with micro-breweries as they often seem to have problems with matching supply and demand. Undaunted, we set about working our way through those that remained.

Being honest, none of the Bush Shack beers was as good as those brewed by Matso's in Broome. The best of those on offer was the Desperate Dan, a strong dark ale. However, even that would have been totally eclipsed by the equivalent Matso's beer - Smokey Bishop.

Nonetheless, we spent a very pleasant few hours at the Bush Shack. Part of the time was spent in the sunshine outside where we ate our picnic. Surprisingly perhaps, visitors can take their own food rather than buy the usual bar fare.

We also played three very weird games of pool - strange because the table wasn't the normal rectangle, but a circle. It had pockets at regular intervals around the edges and one in the centre. The rules were as standard apart from the fact that the black could only be potted in the middle hole. This was surprisingly difficult to achieve because neither of us would leave the other with a direct shot at the centre. The person on play's only option was to attempt to 'double' the black in - a frustrating task given that the cushions were curved, making it nearly impossible to judge where the black was heading. It was no surprise that two of the three games ended only when one of us accidentally potted the black in an illegal pocket.

We eventually headed back on the return walk feeling quite contented with our day. We had a nice cup of tea in the TV room at the camp and it will probably come as no surprise to anyone that Katy put her head down on my lap "just to shut my eyes for a minute" and fell asleep for an hour.

Richard