The new diet taking Margaret River by storm
Blind Corner Vineyard.
Tim Hall has an evangelist’s zeal, the penetrating look of the deeply passionate and the endlessly knowledgeable. “You have to keep trying,” he says.
“You have to keep practising.”
I’m ready to give up on sourdough, but Tim has other ideas. This is the foodstuff we all experimented with creating during COVID-19 lockdowns, the seemingly simple baked good that is actually fiendishly difficult to perfect – and Tim Hall has perfected it.
He’s slicing into multiple loaves of his own fine sourdough bread right now, slathering big hunks with butter, sliding them across the marri-wood table towards me, where I’m already enjoying his sourdough crumpets, dripping with local Cowaramup honey. This table is spread with good things, simple things, tasty things: mashed kabocha pumpkin with kale; fried sticks of sweet potato; more of that honey.
It was all sourced right here on One Table Farm. You might have heard of the 100-mile diet, but this is the 100-metre diet. Pretty much everything except the bread flour is grown and tended to lovingly by Tim and his partner Cree Monaghan on 1600 square metres of Margaret River splendour.
Want to live better? Want to be better? Then you need to spend some time at One Tree Farm, a cooking school and sustainable farming workshop in beautiful southern Western Australia. Cree, a qualified vet who has also studied cookery at Cordon Bleu in Paris, and Tim, a former corporate coach turned sourdough sorcerer, share wisdom and passion here, and show that the supermarket-to-microwave eating pattern so many of us have fallen into can be broken.
Stormflower Cellar Door
Just stroll the farm grounds, with views of rolling countryside and towering marri trees, and you learn so much. How to grow fruit and nuts and vegetables in a way that’s regenerative and sustainable. How to recycle and compost. How to raise chickens. How much space you need for pigs.
Of course, most of us don’t have the room back home to do all of this. But we might have at least some room. And probably an oven for sourdough.
Cree and Tim’s passion is not unusual in Margaret River. This is a region that has collectively embraced the push towards more sustainable ways of farming and living. In particular, many of its wineries – run by those with a vested interest in maintaining the health of the land – are introducing organic and biodynamic practices into their vineyards.
One of those is Blind Corner, run by Ben and Naomi Gould. Several years ago the pair bought a vineyard near Yallingup in the north of Margaret River, an established lot with big, brawny old vines that Ben says, “had basically been fed on McDonald’s”. Bigger, it turns out, isn’t always better.
House of Cards Vineyard.
Now, however, the artificial sweeteners are gone and the Blind Corner vineyard is a thriving organic operation, providing naturally grown fruit that’s the perfect canvas for Ben and Naomi’s lo-fi wines – a new style for “Margs”, but one that’s definitely welcome.
Just down the road in Yallingup, former navy diver Travis Wray is doing the same thing at House of Cards, turning an established vineyard into an organic operation, producing wine in a way that’s thoughtful and sustainable. They’re doing the same nearby at Stormflower too, going organic, stripping the chemicals and additives out of the growing and the making of wine.
Even the providers of accommodation around here have considered your sustainability desires. On the road out to Smiths Beach, again near Yallingup, Barn Hives is a series of eco-friendly “pods” inspired by local bee hives, two-storey accommodation with views over vines and gum trees.
The water here comes from rainwater tanks or a local spring; the pods are cross-ventilated to keep the use of air-conditioners to a minimum; solar panels power the lights and other modern gadgets. Thoughtful, sustainable.
Back at One Table Farm, Tim Hall almost has me convinced. Maybe I will reignite my long-forgotten sourdough quest. Maybe I can be more sustainable in my life at home, more responsible, and also enjoy my own fresh-baked bread.
Or maybe I’ll just grab another crumpet for the road.
THE DETAILS
VISIT
One Table Farm offers cooking classes and sustainable farming workshops throughout the year, see onetablefarm.com.au
Blind Corner Organic Winery is open for tastings by appointment from Wednesday to Saturday, see blindcorner.com.au
To book a Barn Hive, see barnhives.com.au
MORE
Ben Groundwater was a guest of Tourism Western Australia.
Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter
Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.