Everyone has a mistress of a mission when they travel. Whether your oats porridge is never the same without honey or you are a honey connoiseur, there is nothing so sweet nor wonderful than the accidental discovery of a beautiful honey. The West Australian wildflowers in late winter and early spring may appear as masses of yellow trees as you drive, to the point that they almost become invisable. If you take a slow sojourn via Jarradale Road, you will drive through a white snow-like passage of blossom covered bushes... a tunnel of flowers. Throughout the state, you will find the weeping Flowering Red Gum trees. The flowers are kind of alien and strange sometimes, while the local bees spend spring collecting the intoxicating pollens for wild honey flavours you can only imagine.
On Gingin Brook Road you can find home-made honey icecream at West Coast Honey, while the Swan Valley boasts the House of Honey. If you were wiser and older, however, you would take the road to the junction of Albany Highway and Brookton Highway (just out of Perth) and in Roleystone, not far past Araluen, you will see a little chalk sign that reads, "Honey, $8/kg". These bees have feasted. Further into the state, in Gnowangerup, past the tractor shop, is a little IGA where you can find honey fit for kings, Fro-bees honey, heavily disguised in hideous yellow-topped plastic jars.
Fro-bees Honey compares with Dr Trappit's honey but you will never be priviledged to taste it. Fragrant Red Gum Honey and Mallee Honey are produced by Frobees' hives....... honey will never be the same again. The Mallee honey has a delicate and rare flavour. With Temperature changes and exposure to traces of Red gum, the honey may begin to crystallise - hence summer purchases are the closest to liquid amber. This is rare, exquisite bee honey: a prize.
www.westcoasthone.com.au
www.thehouseofhoney.com.au
