Published in Your Margaret River Region Magazine, November 23, 2018

Busselton is brilliant for cycling, and everybody knows that the wines in the south-west can’t be beaten. But when was the last time you combined the two? In the spirit of celebrating our region and the gorgeous warm weather, we’ve put together a riding and sipping itinerary suitable for all ages. Clocking in at 36 km, with six stops, three wineries and with a 100m ascent “mountain stage”, it’s a fun day out worthy of any biking champ.

Stop 1: Busselton Jetty

Get your gang together, pump your tires, check your brakes and strap your helmets. Stop one is, of course, the Busselton Jetty, and while you can’t actually ride bikes onto the historic site, it does make a gorgeous background for a group selfie. #BikingBusso. Ready? Let’s go!

Stop 2: Busselton Archery & Family Fun Park

Picking up the bike lane on Geographe Bay Rd, head west with the ocean on your right, following it all the way to the end, then make your way south till you get to Bussell Hwy. Take the highway all the way to the Busselton Archery & Family Fun Park. You’ve just ridden almost 10km, how do you feel? Probably ready for something different, so now you get to choose between a nine-target archery range, mini golf, or for the more adventurous, a bungee run challenge, and the chance to don giant blow-up bubble suits and smash into each other on a grassy field. Yep, that’s actually a thing. Now that you’ve got all that healthful sport out of the way, it’s time to get to your first winery!

Stop 3: Flametree Wines

Get out onto Caves Rd, then follow it west for 7.4km, turning left at Chain Ave to find Flametree Winery. Their modern, Hamptons-style beach house style cellar door and gallery space is perfect for a tasting, or if you already know what you want, grab a bottle of wine and a platter of tasty bites made with local produce to enjoy on the large deck and grassed area. Periodically breaking into the chorus of Cold Chisel’s classic ‘Flame Trees’ is highly recommended at this point.

Stop 4: Happs Wines

Get back onto Caves Road, and continue west (perhaps stopping off for a sec to check out the work of Master Potter, Myles Happ at Happs Pottery and also pick up some of the local raw honey they also produce Nude Honey, both at #749) then turn left onto Quindalup Siding Rd, and right onto Mewett for 3.8km. Just after the turn at Commonage Rd, you can reward yourself with a quick stop at Simmo’s for an ice cream. In fact, we recommend it because you’ve got a bit of a climb ahead of you, for the last 4.2km “mountain stage” up to Happs Wines. You’ll be glad you did it once once you’re meandering about the Happs Wines cellar door, the pottery gallery (now you know where that work down the road originally came from), tasting room. Take a load off and enjoying a glass of wine in their gardens, perhaps something from their range of their friendly sulphite free wines.

Stop 5: Palmer Wines

Wheee! Pump the brakes as you spin downhill from Happs, (especially if you’ve been samping the grape juice), and take Commonage Rd for the next 5.6km. At the roundabout, take the third exit to head east on Caves Rd, and keep your eyes peeled for Palmer’s on the right, less than a kilometer down the road. After all this riding, you deserve to feast, which means bagging a table at Palmer’s Tuscan-style restaurant, and ordering with gusto from their menu of Aussie-Asian fusion dishes, accompanied of course, with some of their award-winning wines. Cheers!

Ride Responsibly: It is illegal in Western Australia to ride a bike without a helmet, or with a blood-alcohol limit of over 0.05.

Got kids in tow?

Hitch a trailer to their bikes and get them to do the hard work, for once. Just joking. All of the stops are family-friendly, but depending on their ages and abilities you may wish to start your ride at the Fun Park, or skip the Happs Wine “mountain stage” and head straight from Flametree to Palmer’s.