think about some of the great Scottish distilleries in
Speyside and Islay, they’re right on the edge of the
water, too,” he says. “As the whisky sits there, it soaks
up that influence and our spirit has this slightly salty
component people with very refined palates pick up on.
We’ve always wanted to create iconic brands. I think
you can only do that in an iconic location.”
My morning starts with breakfast in the Beach
House’s canary-yellow dining room – good smoked
salmon and eggs, local asparagus, toasted homemade
bread and cumquat marmalade. On the way through
town I take the scenic route via Mount Clarence. From
here Albany is a patchwork of pitched corrugated-iron
roofs and sandstone buildings unfurled to the ocean.
And what a coastline: wild and empty, shimmering in
summer and shivering in winter. Other stretches are
best admired from afar to catch the sense of wide-angle
drama of, for instance, Atatürk Channel from the
lookout at the National Anzac Centre at the summit
of Mount Clarence. An Anzac fleet of 38 ships left
Australia from this point in 1914. Most never returned.
The need for distance at The Gap, a dramatic rock
formation at Torndirrup National Park in which the
ocean roils, is a simple matter of safety. It gets the
Instagram attention, but fewer travellers are aware of
nearby Sharp Point lookout and its dizzying panorama
of the Southern Ocean. Gull Rock Beach, the crowning
glory of the recently established national park of the
same name, is another locals-only gem.
Paul “Yoda” Iskov is local enough to know the
region’s best spots. A chef now based in Busselton, he
runs a roving native-food pop-up called Fervor – and
he’s my road-trip buddy for a couple of days. Iskov and
his partner, Stephne Pronk, stage dinners in remote
Western Australian locations: shearing sheds, caves,
unnamed islands accessible only by helicopter. As a
teenager Iskov spent summer holidays in Albany, and
in his 20s he’d regularly finish Saturday service at
Perth’s Restaurant Amuse and drive all night to spend
two days surfing breaks near the Albany Wind Farm in
Sand Patch, just outside Torndirrup National Park.
“Mates would ask me why I was driving down to
Albany all the time,” he recalls. “‘There’s nothing
down there,’ they’d say, and I’d go, yep, nothing down
there.” He grins, “As surfers, you always wanted to keep
your spots secret.”
These days Iskov spends his time cooking rather
than surfing in the Great Southern. The region is a
rich source of produce for Fervor, much of it from the
Albany-based Bushfood Factory: local macadamia nuts,
lemon, anise and cinnamon myrtles, meen, a chilli-like
root that’s also used by local gin distillers. He says the
chance to spend time with Indigenous communities
in the region is a critical part of his venture. “You go
down here and you explore – that’s how everyone finds
their own little spot.”➤
GOURMET TRAVELLER 145