Geraldton

Out on David Road north of Geraldton, this working permaculture farm doubles as a nursery, and the two pursuits inform each other in ways a standard garden centre never could. The stock leans hard into what actually thrives in this dry, salt-tinged corner of the Midwest: local native tube stock, multi-use and fruiting trees, and the kind of endemic shrubs — hakeas, sennas, grevilleas — that flower in a rush across the farm each season, sometimes hybridising in full view of anyone paying attention. That close observation is part of the appeal; the people here are watching what the birds and bees are doing to their own seed-grown plants, and sharing the results. Alongside the nursery, the Drylands Foundation runs a seed enterprise for open-pollinated vegetables, herbs and native species, and keeps hives that produce honey off the surrounding gardens — all of it funnelled back into the organisation's environmental and sustainability work, including hosting WWOOFers and workshop groups keen to learn permaculture on site. Opening hours shift with the seasons — Thursday to Sunday mornings has been the recent pattern, with other times by arrangement — which suits a place that's as much a demonstration farm as a retail outlet, and worth timing a visit around.

Independent bookselling has proved unusually durable on Geraldton's Marine Terrace, where owner Marianne Bell has kept this shop trading for more than two decades, a run the Geraldton Guardian marked with a feature on her twenty years in the trade. The stock is tidy and well organised, the staff are readers who will steer you toward the right title, and the science fiction and fantasy section runs deeper than the town's size would suggest. Bell works cooperatively with Read A Lot Books, the other local bookseller, sending customers between the two when one cannot find a title. In a mid-west city that has watched other bookshops open and close, it has remained the constant, a general bookshop run on knowledge and continuity rather than volume.

Colour is the organising principle at this homewares and gift shop in the Marine Terrace Mall, where more than forty brands are arranged across bedding, cushions, lighting, tableware and ceramics. Alongside the home range sit jewellery, stationery, candles and diffusers, bath and body products, and a shelf of local gourmet goods. A picture-framing service operates in-house, and the buying leans toward pattern and individuality rather than the muted palettes that dominate most regional gift stores. Open seven days, it functions as Geraldton's main independent stop for interiors and presents, drawing both townsfolk furnishing homes and visitors after something to carry back from the coast. The emphasis throughout is on small makers and considered objects rather than mass-market stock.