Margaret River

Margaret River is two hours south of Perth, which is already one of the most isolated cities on earth, which means the region has a particular kind of quiet that is hard to find elsewhere on the continent. The surf coast runs along the Indian Ocean — Surfers Point, The Box, Yallingup, Smiths Beach — a sequence of breaks that holds the Margaret River Pro, a WSL Championship Tour stop, every year. These are not beginner waves. The region has been producing world-class surfers for fifty years, and the ocean here — cold, powerful, unforgiving on a bad day — is why. Twenty kilometres inland, the same red laterite soil and maritime climate that produces the ocean conditions has been growing Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Semillon since the 1960s. The wine region is not adjacent to the surf coast. It is the same place.

What makes Margaret River specific is the coexistence of things that are genuinely serious about themselves. The surfers are serious. The winemakers are serious. The chefs — who have been cooking with the produce of this region for thirty years — are serious. A week here tends to organise itself around the morning — surf or walk the Cape to Cape Track before the onshore wind comes in, cellar doors from noon, dinner somewhere that has been sourcing from the same farms for longer than most Sydney restaurants have existed. The region has the quiet confidence of a place that knows it doesn't need to explain itself.