Perth

…we rarely travel far to swim. We occasionally cross the river to Leighton or Cottesloe, where the white sand squeaks underfoot and the champagne foam in the shallows tingles the legs and fizzes over the shoreline and makes children giddy with delight … the cirrus clouds above the horizon often resemble passages of perfect cursive script written in soft white lines against the bluest page.

David Whish-Wilson’s Perth is a place of surprising beauty, of sand-swept peace and brilliant light, yet a place where the deeper historical currents are never too far beneath the surface. Like the Swan River that flows in two directions at once at certain times, with the fresh water flowing seawards above the salty water flowing in beneath it, Perth strikes perfect harmony with the city’s contradictions and eccentricities.

We look beyond shiny glass facades and boosterish talk of mining booms to the richness of the natural world and the trailblazers, the rebels, the occasional ghost and the ordinary people that bring Australia’s remotest city to life.