Audley in Western Australia
This is Australia’s largest state, but much of it is unpopulated. A vast landscape inhabited only by a scatter of residents stretching up to the north.
The state capital is Perth, a friendly oasis of sophistication where gleaming skyscrapers overlook quiet colonial suburbs on the banks of the Swan River. A short drive to the west is the restored port town of Fremantle and a chain of beautiful surf beaches, but it is a long drive to the next settlement inland - the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie. The Margaret River area has beautiful national parks, friendly wineries and deserted beaches, cooling towards temperate forest regions and the remote southern coast. Go north and you pass the weird rock formations of the Pinnacles, the visiting dolphins of Shark Bay and the pearl farms of Broome.
We know the best places to visit: the whales that track past Albany from May to October, the remote Kimberley and the awesome wilderness of Cape Leveque. Perth and the south west can be visited year-round, though it can be chilly from June to August, The north is best in the ‘dry’, from April to October, as the ‘wet’ can be very humid even if not always wet.