DAY 124 - OFF TO DENMARK…..

Beautiful beautiful Denmark here we come…

I have been looking forward to visiting Denmark, all reports about this beautiful town have been great… Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that our son and daughter in law live in the other Denmark.

It wasn’t the best day to see Denmark as it was overcast and windy, but never the less we arrived there mid morning, and once we were set up, and a bite to eat, we took off with a list of places to visit.  

Arriving at the Chocolate Factory in Denmark

 

Mostly we were doing indoor sort of visits today because of the weather with our first port of call being the Denmark Chocolate Company.  This was set in lush gardens just out of town. The gardens had a chocolate walk we could do which gave us the history and the story of chocolate.  All very interesting.  

I always thought that Cadbury Chocolate was an Australian invention and company but we found out through this walk that it originated in Quaker territory in the USA.   I personally learnt a lot of info from this walk through their garden.

After reading all about chocolate we ventured into side.  Unfortunately you couldn’t see the chocolate being made here like we had done when at the Margaret River Chocolate company, it was more like a café where you could try the various chocolates and have a drink and something to eat.  

It was also horribly expensive, with most chocolates being $3 each for one small chocolate.  However we were offered a little sample plate of chocolates to try.  As it was rather cold and damp outside, we did end up ordering a hot chocolate and enjoyed sitting in the warmth of the inside whilst we drank it. 

Even that was horribly expensive at $9.50 a mug.  It was  made on  frothed milk, and real chocolate buttons.  It arrived on the table as just frothed milk and we then added the buttons until we got it to the desired taste and flavour.  All next experiences and probably not one we would indulge in again at that price.  We had a choice also of what strength chocolate we wanted from white chocolate to 90% cocoa chocolate.  Steve settled for the 38% milk chocolate, I had the 55% strength dark chocolate.

 From here we headed out to visit the Jassi Leatherworks.  We had seen a turnoff for it on the highway as we drove in to town, earlier in the day

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 While the leathergoods there were really well made and of very good quality, they were very expensive with a pair of sheepskin slippers costing $170.  I guess if you lived somewhere like here where it was cold for a good part of the year you could justify the expense, but for us, they were frightfully expensive when you would probably only get to wear them for about six weeks back home.  Even the children’s slippers were $99 but they were ever so cute. 

We didn’t have too long here as we arrived only about 15 minutes before their closing time, so it was a pretty quick look around.  

From here we headed back in towards Denmark to Bartholomew’s Meadery to sample some of their honey.  They had all sorts of speciality Western Australian honey, so of it being really lovely and we did end up buying some wildflower honey.  Prices here were very reasonable and the staff were really helpful.  We picked up a couple of bee pencils for our grandchildren also. 

 They also sold all sorts of honey ice-cream and wine, neither of which we indulged in. 

I think we were their last customers for the afternoon also.  By now it was 4.30pm, so we figured that if the Leather place and the meadery were closing now, we guessed that the Denmark Cheese factory would also probably be closing so rather than head out to find it we would live it for another day.  

Mt Shadforth - pity it wasn't a sunny day..

 Instead, we went for a scenic drive up to Mt. Shadforth to see the view over Denmark.  I could imagine that it would be quite stunning on a hot sunny day as you could see the water.  This afternoon it was a murky colour just like the sky.  Still the drive up there was beautiful.  Lots of lush green pastures with cows, sheep, vineyards, lovely tall karri trees, just a really pretty drive.  

On the mud map we were given when we booked into our caravan park, I had noticed that there were some wetlands marked so we thought we would drive out and check them out also.  

Boot cleaner for walking in the bush here...

They really were something else…..

It was an easy 300m walk  from the picnic area and follows the edge of the paperbark wetlands.  It had an eerie sinister feel about it, but at the same time, the paperbark trees were quite majestic.  It would be the perfect setting for a fantasy movie.  

It was quite the hidden gem, and we are definitely glad that we had found it, as it was not something I had read about in the travel brochures or had heard about it from other travellers.    We managed to get some stunning photos also.

By now it was after 5.30pm so time to head back home towards  the caravan park. 

As we got closer to home we thought we would just take a drive around to check out where Wilson Inlet meets up with Ocean Beach,  which is not far from where we were staying. 

 It really wasn’t the right sort of weather to be out on headlands or down on the coast with the howling cold winds that were blowing, but we couldn’t help ourselves and even with the rough conditions, it had a different rugged beauty all of its own.   

Looking forward to exploring more of this beautiful area tomorrow…