Dunsborough Day Trip From Yallingup

Dunsborough is fifteen minutes from my workshop. Good coffee, good food, and Meelup Beach ten minutes out the other side.

Photo: Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

When people ask me where to go for a day off in this region, Dunsborough usually comes up. It's the closest proper town to my workshop, it's small enough that you can park once and walk to everything, and the country immediately around it (Cape Naturaliste, Meelup, Eagle Bay) is some of the best in Western Australia. I've watched it grow up over forty years. It used to be a sleepy fishing town. Now it has very good coffee and the same beach.

I'm going to lay this out as a one-day plan that starts in Yallingup. Staying in Dunsborough already? Just rearrange the order.

Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. From Blythe Rd it's about fifteen minutes into Dunsborough via Caves Road or the Hwy. I usually take Caves Road because I'd rather drive past vines than past anything else.

The town sits on Geographe Bay, which faces north. That matters because everything around Dunsborough is sheltered from the swell that hits Smiths Beach and Yallingup. The water here is calm. The beaches are family-friendly. The bay is what makes the place possible.

Photo: Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Start your day with coffee in town. There are half a dozen places that do it well: the Dunsborough Bakery for something quick, or any of the cafes along Naturaliste Terrace. Walk the hundred metres down to the town beach when you've got a cup in hand. The water is shallow and calm. The jetty is a five-minute stroll.

This is the easiest morning in the region. Coffee, beach, breath. You don't need to plan it.

Around 10am you've got a fork in the road, and which way you take depends on the weather.

On a clear, still morning, head north out of town to Cape Naturaliste. The drive is fifteen minutes. Park at the lighthouse and walk the cape tracks. They're short, mostly flat, and the views out across Geographe Bay are the views I take every visitor to. Cape Naturaliste, the longer view for the longer take.

On a windy or overcast day, swap the cape for Meelup Beach, which is more sheltered.

Photo: Western Australian Government, CC BY 2.5 AU · via Wikimedia Commons

Meelup is ten minutes from the centre of Dunsborough out Meelup Beach Road. The road itself is scenic: narrow, lined with peppermint trees, with little turnoffs to other small bays. Castle Bay and Point Picquet are along the way; both worth a look. Meelup itself is the famous one, and on a calm day it's the most swimmable water within an hour of my workshop. Pamela and I come out here when we want a quiet morning.

For visitors who've travelled a long way to see the South West, this is the country I want them to see first. the broader beach guide for where Meelup sits in the beach ranking. Spoiler: it's in the top three.

Keep going on the Meelup Beach Road and you reach the Eagle Bay area. Inland from the bay, about ten minutes from the beach, is Eagle Bay Brewing Co. They're open daily 11am to 5pm. The brewery has a big garden lawn, a fire pit in winter, and a kitchen that does fresh, local, seasonal food: local fish, slow-cooked pork, that kind of thing. The pale ale is what I'd order. Twenty-eight beers on tap, so if you want to taste your way through it, plan accordingly.

It's busy on weekends. Book for a lunchtime table. When they're full, Wise Wine is a short drive away and the restaurant view there is one of the best in the region: straight down to Geographe Bay through a stand of trees.

an Eagle Bay Brewing day for the brewery-focused version of this day.

After lunch, head back toward Dunsborough. The drive back along Meelup Road in the afternoon light is worth doing slowly.

In town there are a few options:

• Bookshop and browse the main street. Dunsborough has a couple of independent stores worth half an hour. Surf shops, a bakery, an outdoor shop.
• Yallingup Galleries, on the Caves Road end. Stocks craft from the region. Worth a look even without buying.
• The town beach again for a swim when the morning didn't quite do it.

To make this a culture-and-craft day, drop into the workshop on the way back.

The gallery sits halfway between Dunsborough and Yallingup, off Caves Road on Blythe Rd. Heading back from Eagle Bay Brewing toward Yallingup, it's a five-minute detour. Pamela is usually at the front. I'm usually in the workshop through the viewing window. We're open Monday to Saturday. The jarrah walls and limestone are mine; the work inside is mine, Alan Fox's glass, Julia Carter's paintings, Dylan Fox's photography. Half an hour easy.

Staying for dinner in Dunsborough? The place I'd send you is Yarri. Chef Aaron Carr ran the Vasse Felix kitchen for twenty-one years before opening his own room here. Open seven days from 4pm. Three-course or six-course tasting menu, both with optional wine matches. Book in advance, especially on weekends.

When Yarri is full or out of budget, try The Pourhouse for something more casual, or head back toward Yallingup for Caves House dining room, which has been serving meals since 1903. The longer rundown of the Dunsborough restaurants worth booking covers the rest.

Dunsborough is the easiest town in this region to spend a day in. Park once, walk everywhere, and you're never more than fifteen minutes from a good beach.

Photo: Stuart Sevastos, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Time before dinner? Drive back out to Cape Naturaliste for sunset. The lighthouse closes at 5pm in winter and 6pm in summer, but the carpark and the walking tracks are open later. The cape faces west and the view from the rocks below the lighthouse is, for my money, the best sunset spot in Geographe Bay. up at the lighthouse for the full guide.

For a coastal sunset closer to Dunsborough proper, swing back to Meelup at golden hour. Same beach, different light, different mood. The peppermint trees go gold.

This whole day works in five hours. Coffee in town, Meelup or Cape Naturaliste, lunch at Eagle Bay, drive back via the gallery, swim before sunset. That's the half-day version.

Dunsborough without a winery for the longer take on this. Quick version:

• Whale watching from Cape Naturaliste between September and December.
• Snorkelling at Meelup or Castle Bay on calm days.
• The Cape to Cape Track passes within a kilometre of Dunsborough's centre. Walk a section.
• The Dunsborough Yallingup Bus Service runs a loop between the two towns for drinkers who don't want to drive.
• Bunker Bay: keep going past Eagle Bay and you reach the Pullman resort and a north-facing beach that's protected from the swell.

The big tourist shopping arcades are fine for sunscreen. Beyond that, Dunsborough isn't a shopping town. Don't come for retail. Come for the bay, the coffee, the beer, the kitchen at Yarri, and the country immediately around the place.

Driving back to Yallingup at the end of the day, take Caves Road in the dusk. Watch for kangaroos. The hop home from Dunsborough is one of those drives that always feels shorter than fifteen minutes, probably because you're tired and full and the day's done what it needed to do.

That's what Dunsborough is for. Not a place to tick off. A place to spend a day in and come back from feeling like the region looked after you.