Perth

Among Australia's big cities only the west coast watches the sun drop into the ocean. Norfolk pines line the back of the sand and throw shade, and lifeguards patrol only the stretch facing the steps. The shallows run out far, so the surf is weak.

Convicts cut the stone and built the prison that would hold them. Work began in the 1850s and it was still a prison into the 1990s. It is one of eleven convict sites carrying World Heritage status. A tour boats the tunnels they dug, down a ladder in a helmet.

Thirty minutes from Fremantle by boat, and no private cars come, so you ride. Quokkas, small marsupials, do not back away and come to your feet. Touching or feeding them is banned, with a fine attached. A Dutch visitor took them for rats and named the island.

A whole hill beside the centre was kept as parkland, so the Swan River and the towers lie below. One boab, trucked down over several days from the Kimberley in the north, stands out on the lawn, already centuries old when it moved.

Thousands of limestone spires stand out of yellow sand in Nambung National Park. Some reach the knee and some overtop a person, so the gaps narrow as you walk. With the sun low each spire lays a long shadow, which is when the cars arrive.

A granite face carved into the shape of a wave curling over, with dark red streaks running down it. It sits in wheat country four hours east of Perth by car, so a whole day goes to it.

Inside an 1897 brick hall, open only from Friday to Sunday. One half is vegetables and fish, the other clothes and craft, and someone plays in the aisle between them. Fruit prices drop for the last hour before the doors shut.

Built in the gold rush years, and gold is still melted and poured here for visitors. The metal takes a few minutes to set in the mould and nobody talks while it does. A one-tonne gold coin sits behind glass, its value moving with the daily gold price.

A twelve-sided lockup put up in 1831 and used as a gaol until 1886. It sits on the cliff, so the sea shows from the courtyard, and a tunnel drops through the rock to the wharf.

Most of these flowers grow in this state alone and some are still unnamed. Flowering starts in the dry north and works south over months, so where to go in a year follows the reports at the time. Between September and November they reach parks near Perth.

A glass spire by the Swan River jetties hangs twelve old bells from St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. They came as Britain's gift for the 1988 bicentenary of European settlement. From the viewing level you watch ringers at the ropes behind glass.

The state museum reopened in new form in the Perth Cultural Centre in late 2020. An entire blue whale skeleton hangs in the lobby, so the first thing you do is look up. Its name means many stories in the Noongar language.

Western Australia's oldest wine region, 30 minutes by road from central Perth towards the north-east. Wineries, breweries, a chocolate factory and cheese shops crowd one looping road. Wine cruises also head upriver from the city jetties.

Brilliant white dunes about two hours up the coast to the north. Most visitors hire a board in the village and sandboard down the slopes. There is no shade whatsoever, so skip the midday heat and carry plenty of water.

In an old Fremantle harbour warehouse stands part of the hull of the Batavia, a Dutch ship wrecked off Western Australia in 1629, reassembled upright. The mutiny and massacre that followed are told alongside. Instead of a fee, visitors drop a donation.