Tamworth, New South Wales

Tamworth sits where the Peel River meets the New England Highway, the largest city in the New England North West and the country music capital of Australia. Couples marry in sandstone churches and on riverbank lawns, in restored woolsheds on the black-soil plains, and at vineyard and homestead venues scattered through the Peel and Namoi valleys.

It is a working country city rather than a resort town, and that is the appeal: real main-street shopfronts, generous space, and a two-hour reach across the region for guests coming from Armidale, Gunnedah, Quirindi and Manilla. The light on the surrounding hills at golden hour does most of the work for the photographs.