The Best of Margaret River: A Local's Definitive List

I've been asked this question for forty years. What's the best? Usually by people who've just arrived and don't know where to start. Here's my actual answer.

It comes with a caveat. The word best is a trap. Every category below has three or four candidates that could plausibly hold the title in a given month or season, and a real answer depends on what you're after and when you've come. What I've done instead is give you my pick, the runner-up, and the reason. If you only have a weekend, the first answer in each section is the one I'd send my own family to.

A second caveat. I live here. The view is partial. I will tell you the things I tell my friends. The chocolate factory is not in this list because my friends don't ask me about the chocolate factory.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Margaret River, the place tourism boards talk about, is really the country between Cape Naturaliste in the north and Cape Leeuwin in the south. About a hundred and twenty kilometres of coast, ten or twelve towns and hamlets, hundreds of wineries, dozens of beaches, two cape lighthouses, a forest, four major caves, and the highest concentration of working artists in the country. The town of Margaret River sits in the middle of all that, inland, and lends its name to the region.

The workshop on Blythe Rd in Yallingup sits at the northern end. From here, the southern tip of the region at Augusta is an hour. Most of what's on this list is within forty-five minutes.

Vasse Felix has been making wine here since 1967, which means it predates almost everything else in the region. The Cabernet Sauvignon is the wine the region is built on, and Vasse Felix still does the cleanest version of it. The cellar door is a long stone room with high ceilings and a fire in winter. The restaurant has been at the top of the regional list for as long as I've been here. The art gallery upstairs holds a serious collection of contemporary Australian work and rotates every few months.

If I'm taking someone for their first proper Margaret River tasting, this is where we go.

Runner-up: Clairault Streicker. Quieter, less famous, and (in my view) doing some of the most interesting Chardonnay in the region right now. The cellar door is on Caves Rd between Yallingup and Cowaramup. A good second stop or a swap-in if Vasse Felix is full.

The honest version. If you only have time for one winery, go to Vasse Felix and book the restaurant for lunch. You will not be disappointed. (For the longer list, wineries near Yallingup covers the five I send people to most.)

Two reasons. The first is that the dining room is the right room, the food matches the wine, and the menu is built around local produce in a way that you taste on the plate. The second is that you're already here for the wine, and not having to drive somewhere else for lunch is the single best argument for any cellar door restaurant in the region.

Runner-up: Wills Domain. Up the hill at Yallingup, in a glass-walled room that looks out over the vines and the coast. The tasting menu is consistently the most ambitious in the region. Dinner here is a proper night out.

For something casual: Miki's Open Kitchen in the town for Japanese (book a week ahead), or the Margaret River Brewhouse for a long verandah lunch. Yarri in Dunsborough is the best dinner room at the northern end of the region.

For breakfast: the White Elephant Cafe at Gnarabup, on the sand, for the morning you want to sit and look at water. Sidekick in the town centre for the morning you want a flat white in five minutes flat.

I'm going to defend this one. Smiths Beach (no apostrophe — Australian convention) sits a few kilometres south of Yallingup. It's a long, white-sand crescent backed by limestone cliffs and a single low-rise resort. At the northern end it's sheltered by a headland and the swimming is gentle. At the southern end the swell wraps in and the surf works on a southwest swell. The light at sunrise from the northern car park is the reason I'm still here forty-odd years on.

It's not the most-photographed beach in the region. Bunker Bay probably is. But Smiths has the right combination of accessibility, scale, surf, and quiet that most beaches around here trade off against each other. The carpark is fifty metres from the sand. The water is clean. The crowd is manageable even in January if you start early.

Runner-up: Meelup Beach, twenty minutes north on the Cape Naturaliste side. Sheltered from a southwesterly, north-facing, family-perfect, and the most paintable beach in the region. Park early on a summer Saturday or you'll miss out.

For a swim with nobody else there: Injidup, ten minutes south of Smiths. Down a sand track, no facilities, often empty even in summer. The Injidup Natural Spa is a five-minute walk along the rocks at the southern end. The longer take on Injidup is here.

Photo: Sam Wilson, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

This is the category that's changed most over the past decade. Twenty years ago there were chalets and a couple of resorts. Now there are designer cottages, small boutique hotels, and properly serious country estates in every direction.

Best mid-range: Smiths Beach Resort. Right on the sand. The villas are dated in places but the position is unbeatable, you can walk to the surf in two minutes, and the bistro is solid. School holidays book out a year ahead.

Best high-end: Pullman Bunker Bay. Lodge-style, set in a national park above Bunker Bay, with the best ocean views from any room in the region. Pricey. Worth it for an anniversary or a special weekend.

Best small / boutique: Empire Spa Retreat. A quiet cluster of luxury villas in karri forest above Yallingup. Two-night minimum. The right place if you want a couples' weekend with no distractions. I've written about it as a 48-hour itinerary.

Best for a group: a holiday house in Yallingup or Dunsborough. The big four-bedroom houses on the headlands above Smiths and Yallingup beaches sleep eight comfortably, have full kitchens, and in winter cost less per head than a single hotel room.

Best for a budget: a cabin at Margaret River Tourist Park, or the YHA in the township. Both are clean, cheerful, and central enough to walk to dinner.

Australia has a few great long-distance walking tracks. The Cape to Cape, from Cape Naturaliste lighthouse to Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, is one of them. It's 135 kilometres in total. Almost nobody walks the whole thing. Almost everybody who comes here should walk a section of it.

The two sections I send people on are the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse to Sugarloaf Rock loop (about 90 minutes return, easy underfoot, big views) and the Yallingup to Smiths Beach clifftop (about an hour each way, harder underfoot, the best stretch in the north). Both give you the coast at its most uncomplicated: limestone cliffs, granite headlands, pale sand, turquoise water, and a section of bush that drops away at your feet to the Indian Ocean.

The walk costs nothing. It's open year-round. Decent shoes, water, a hat, and a phone with the wind direction loaded — that's the kit. The longer guide to walking it is here.

Autumn here runs from late March to the end of May. The summer crowds are gone, the vintage is on, the cellar doors are alive with the year's work coming in off the vines, the surf has started picking up but the worst of the winter storms haven't arrived, and the light is the best it gets. The mornings are crisp. The afternoons are warm. The wineries are at their most interesting because the grape pickers are still around and you can smell the fermentation through the cellar door windows.

If you can only come once and you've got flexibility, come in late April. The Margaret River Wine Festival usually falls around then. The light through the karri forests is gold. The water is still warm enough to swim in.

Runner-up: spring (September to early November). The wildflowers come out, the whales are on the coast, and the surf is still working but the temperature is climbing. Less reliable weather than autumn but, on a good week, no worse.

Why not summer? December and January are busy. Accommodation prices double. The famous beaches fill by 11am. The cellar doors are at their most polished but least interesting. Come if you have to, but come for the first week of December or the last week of February — the shoulder weeks.

Why not winter? I'd argue you should come in winter. The cellar doors light their fires, the surf is properly serious, the gallery is at its quietest, and the region drops back to being itself rather than performing for visitors. The winter case in full is here.

The detailed seasonal breakdown is in best time to visit Margaret River.

Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

There are four major caves open to visitors in the region: Ngilgi at the northern end near Yallingup, and Mammoth, Lake, and Jewel south of the town along Caves Rd. They're all worth a visit; you should not try to do more than one in a trip.

I send people to Ngilgi first because the entry chamber drops you into a different temperature and a different light inside ninety seconds, and the self-guided tour gets you out in about an hour. It's the closest to the workshop, the easiest to integrate into a Yallingup day, and the one most people remember longest. The half-day Ngilgi write-up covers the practicalities.

Runner-up: Lake Cave. Smaller, but the underground lake at the bottom is one of the strange and beautiful things about this coast. Forty minutes south of the town.

If you only do one drive in the region, do Caves Rd from Dunsborough to Augusta, ideally with a stop at every winery you fancy along the way. The road runs the spine of the cape, mostly through karri forest, with the Indian Ocean a few kilometres west the whole way. The speed limit is 80km/h and it's a windy road; don't rush it. Allow a full day. Stop for lunch. Get out at Boranup Forest for fifteen minutes among the karri.

The full guide to the drive is on the journal.

This is the part of the list where I have to declare an interest. The thing most people miss in this region is the working studios of the local makers. The wineries are easy to find. The beaches are signposted. The caves are on the brochures. The studios are not.

There are dozens of working artists between Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin: painters, ceramicists, glass-blowers, sculptors, woodworkers, photographers. Most of them open their studios during the day. Most of them are at the bench when you arrive. Most of them are happy to talk for ten minutes about what they're working on if you show up at a reasonable hour and ask a real question.

The gallery and workshop on Blythe Rd in Yallingup is one of these. The walls are jarrah and southwest limestone; I built them in 1988. The workshop runs through to the gallery and you can usually see a piece coming together at the bench while you look at the finished work. Pamela is most often the one on the gallery floor. The east room shows a curated selection of work from other southwest makers — glass, painting, sculpture, photography.

This is the thing you can't get on a tour. The wineries you can read about. The caves are described on a placard. A piece of solid jarrah furniture is a thing you have to see being made to understand. The makers down here are most of the reason the region has the character it does, and they're easier to visit than people realise.

The workshop is open every day, 10am to 4pm (Saturdays until 5pm). No appointment needed. Google Maps occasionally misdirects via Wildwood Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy from Busselton, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd.

Said with affection. These are not bad, they're just not the right priority for most people.

• Three caves in a day. One cave is the right number.
• The chocolate factory tour. Buy chocolate, skip the tour.
• A cellar door cycling tour in summer. Hot, slow, and you'll see less than you would in a car.
• Driving to Augusta on a day trip. Augusta is beautiful but it's an hour each way from Yallingup. Make it an overnight or skip it.
• Trying to see everything. Pick four good places. See them properly.

A 48-hour version of the best of the region, roughly:

1. Fri 6pm

   Yallingup

   Sleep here. Walk down to the headland after dinner. Stars over the Indian Ocean.
2. Sat 7am

   Smiths Beach

   Walk south end to north end before breakfast. Forty-five minutes.
3. Sat 9am

   Ngilgi Cave

   Hour underground. Self-guided. Book ahead in summer.
4. Sat 11am

   The gallery on Blythe Rd

   Half an hour in the workshop and the east room.
5. Sat 12:30pm

   Vasse Felix

   Lunch in the dining room. Book ahead.
6. Sat 3pm

   Caves Road south

   Drive down to Boranup. Fifteen minutes among the karri.
7. Sat 5pm

   Canal Rocks

   Sunset on the granite. Walk the footbridge.
8. Sun 8am

   Cape Naturaliste lighthouse

   Walk out toward Sugarloaf. Ninety minutes return.
9. Sun 11am

   Meelup Beach

   Swim. Coffee in Dunsborough after.
10. Sun 1pm

    Wills Domain or Aravina

    Lunch at the cellar door. Slow afternoon.

That's a weekend. You'll have missed plenty. You'll have seen the best of it.

Photo: Michelle Corcoran, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

There is no single best. The region is varied enough that the right answer depends on the week, the weather, and what you're after. But if you pushed me, against the wall, for one answer to the question my friends ask: come in late April, sleep at Yallingup, do Vasse Felix for lunch, walk on Smiths in the morning, sit at Canal Rocks at sunset, and stop in for a coffee at the workshop at some point on the Saturday. Do that, and you've done the region. Do it slowly, and you've done it properly.

That's the list. The version I'd give my own family.

Photo: David Stanley, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons