After a bland 100 miles or so, just below the town of Bunbury, the southwest tip of Australia juts into the Indian Ocean and the landscape bursts into a thousand shades of green. In the 50-odd miles between the northern and southern capes of the bulge is Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, a coastline of thundering waves, untouched beaches, and death-wish surfers who brave curls with names like the Gallows and the Guillotine.

In Yallingup, I check in at Caves House, amid gardens high above the moody sea. It's a creaking manor with a sweeping veranda, antique white-tiled bathrooms, and dark hallways lined with 1930s photographs of the staff dressed for tennis. I'm so enraptured by the time warp that in the morning I can't help gushing to the desk clerk. She nods sadly. "Glad you liked it," she says. "We got the word last week that we're all getting the boot." In a month, Caves House would be handed over to a company for conversion into a luxury resort.

I drive to the coast's far southern tip, near Augusta, where the Indian and the Southern Oceans meet and chew furiously at the shoreline. Humpback and southern right whales are known to frolic in the foamy waters beneath the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse. When I ask about the seas, the lighthouse's middle-aged, cardigan-wearing ticket attendant mistakes me for a surfer. "Redgate Beach is going off today," she reports. "Be careful. There's a nasty rip."

This remote corner of Australia is home to more than 60 wineries, which flourish thanks to sunny summers and surrounding waters that ward off frost and drought. It's called the Margaret River Wine Region, and the town of the same name is a laid-back artists' retreat of coffeehouses and galleries. Encouraged by raves from several people at a coffee shop in town, I lunch at VAT 107, which uses local organic ingredients for dishes like spicy quail, honeycomb ice cream, and grilled marron--a cobalt-blue freshwater crayfish that is native only to southwest Australia and can grow to more than a foot long.

I rent a cottage for the night at Burnside Bungalows and Organic Farm. It's run by Jamie and Lara McCall, who fled Perth for the wine country a few years ago with their three young sons. Guests stay in airy, hand-built cottages with kitchens, woodstoves, and views over the paddocks, and they're even welcome to help themselves to food from the harvests--olives, macadamias, avocados, apricots, and mulberries.

What really drew me to the region are the ancient, mammoth trees. The pale-bark karri trees are 150 feet tall, as big around as foldout couches. I cruise along on empty roads that undulate over hills, around pastures dotted with contented cows, and into miles of forests that feel as sacred as Gothic cathedrals. Now and then, brief bouts of rain appear, and the clean scent of wet soil pours through the open windows. It's car-commercial good.

The forest hides some cozy lumber hamlets--toy-town-like and tinged with the aroma of freshly cut timber, where chimneys smoke and carpenters deal in exotic woods such as jarrah. Many village names use the Aboriginal suffix -up, which means "place of," lending the vicinity an endearing, fairy-tale euphony: Nannup, Manjimup, Balingup. Then there's Pemberton, home of one of the area's most prized attractions: the enormous Gloucester Tree, which for years served as a lookout tower for firefighters. Anyone may climb to its platform, which is 190 feet up, but the means of ascent is a helix of slippery metal pegs spiraling perilously into the branches.

As evening sets in, I check into a two-room bungalow at Pump Hill Farm Cottages, stoke its potbellied stove, and uncork a bottle of Margaret River red. Out my back door, in total darkness, a cool rain rustles the leaves.

I may be far from where I live, but I'm utterly at home. The chatter of the forest is a little unsettling at first, but by the time the fire dies out, I'm fast asleep.

Lodging

Food

Attractions