Yallingup, July 2021
👩🦰 Happy Anniversary to us, yay!! 🥰🥰 I’m a big believer in celebrating the special moments (and even in making ordinary moments into special ones by celebrating them) and I just love anniversaries! Last year we did things more my way - a spa staycation complete with couple’s massage haha - so this year we did more of a nature escape, although still in fancy digs! One quick photo snap on the way down...or so I thought:
We were really sweating this one and thinking we might have to cancel it because the week earlier we had been subject to a snap lockdown thanks to a COVID19 case out in the community! Thankfully, just two days before we were due to leave, the lockdown was lifted. It did affect our plans as we weren’t able to do things like go to restaurants…but there’s a silver lining to every cloud - instead of eating in a crowded restaurant we got takeaway and had a cosy meal in the room, just the two of us, enjoying this gorgeous view:
Anyway, off to Yallingup! Yallingup is a beautiful little coastal town between the well-known popular tourist destinations Dunsborough and Margaret River, about a 3 hour drive (250kms) south of Perth. Although less well-known, Yallingup is popular for its beaches, limestone caves, and its close proximity to the wine regions and Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park. We booked a stay at Yallingup Villas in the Studio Villa and were really impressed with the room! The studio villa has a king-sized bed (a necessity when you’re dating a king-sized 6’3 100kg+ man haha) and a beautiful deep-soak tub (a necessity when you’re dating…well, me haha). The best part though was definitely the beautiful view from the balcony in the image above, which was still magical in the rainy weather we experienced during our trip. (Images below from yallingupvillas.com)
We arrived late in the evening so there wasn’t a whole lot of time to do much other than unpack, take a few very professional-looking images with my stunning model (see below) then settle in for some dinner. We ordered a gourmet afternoon hamper when booking the villa, and while the price seemed steep, it was worth every penny and made for a delicious dinner that was more than enough for both of us.
And what better place to eat your dinner on a cold, rainy day than in the deep soak tub? Accommodation - to me - is never truly great unless it has an amazing bath, and this tub was perfect. It’s hard to find tubs that are deep enough and long enough for Aaron to fit in properly, let alone for us both to comfortably soak in, and this one was glorrrrious! Anyway, I could write a whole blog about tubs but I’ll move on haha!
The next day we decided to risk it and were praying that the rain would hold off while we did a hike to Quinninup Falls. Best seen in winter when the water is flowing, it’s described as a ‘physically challenging’ hike that should take around 45 mins there and 1 hour back (there is a verrry steep sandy dune that is much more challenge to get back up than it was to get down!). So off we set, with some perilous-looking skies off in the distance over the water. We thought that we’d be able to get there and back before the clouds rolled in and the heavens opened up on us. We stopped for a few piccies along the way, naturally!
1hr and 20 mins (and 6kms) in, we wondered if maybe we had taken a wrong turn somewhere…It was only when Aaron pulled out Google Maps that he realised we’d gone to the wrong side of the carpark to start the hike and were on the 120km Cape to Cape track instead! While you’d think the signage would’ve given it away, we just assumed that the falls were on the way…they were not.
So we turned around and marched straight back the way we came as fast as we could! The rain had been pouring down off and on, and Aaron has cold urtikaria - a condition where being exposed to cold can cause him to have muscle spasms and even faint and go blind (temporarily) - so we didn’t really want to hang around while those mean-looking clouds rolled in. Despite being in a far less jovial mood than when we had set off, we were laughing our heads off hiding under trees, and occasionally I’d cover Aaron’s head by getting him to crouch down and pop his head in my jumper.
When we saw the sign to the falls - it was not very clearly signposted! - we made record time, getting there in under 30 mins to take the token Insta-worthy snap in front of the falls, which I’ll admit were not as tall as I expected… Still, it was very pretty, and would have been a quick hike had we not spent almost 3 hours on the wrong side of track! We finished off the day with a little 4WDing, which was great fun, then spent the rest of the night relaxing with takeout from a fancy restaurant before heading home the next day.
What I really loved about this trip was that although nothing went to plan, instead of getting angry at how COVID19 had ruined our plans and taking it out on each other when our hike was a bit of a disaster, we simply adapted by making new plans and found ways to have fun with it and have a laugh (although I’ll admit I still had some grumps on the hike, but Aaron had it way worse than I did with the cold!). The true test of a relationship is how well you handle the tough times and challenges, and how you get through it together. At times this trip really tested our patience and I think we passed with flying colours ❤️