Staying at Injidup Spa Retreat? 48-Hour Itinerary

Booked Injidup Spa Retreat Yallingup? I won't pretend you've made a modest choice. Cliff-top villas, plunge pools, the Indian Ocean below the deck. You've come here to slow down. So this itinerary is built around that, not around running you through six wineries in a day.

I'm John. I live and work eight minutes from where you'll be, on Blythe Rd. I've been on this coast since 1982 and the place around Injidup is some of the country I know best. Here's what I'd do with two days if I were you.

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

The retreat sits on the headland above Injidup Beach. The beach down there is one of the wilder ones in the area. Surf can be heavy, and the south end has a natural rock pool that fills with each high tide, one of the better swims on the coast when conditions allow. You won't see many other people. That's the point. Walk down the steps before breakfast on the first day and you'll have a sense of what the next two days should feel like.

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

1. 7am

   Injidup Beach

   Down the steps. Walk south along the sand to the rock pool. Twenty minutes. Don't push it. The point is to be on the beach before anyone else is.
2. 8.30am

   Breakfast at the retreat or in town

   Either eat in or drive five minutes to the Yallingup township for something at the Caves House Hotel or one of the small cafes.
3. 10am

   The Cape to Cape track, Injidup to Sugarloaf

   About four kilometres one way. Cliff path. Some of the best ocean views on the whole 135km track. Wear proper shoes and bring water.
4. 12.30pm

   Lunch — Lamonts or Wills Domain

   Both within eight minutes. Lamonts has the big windows on the bush. Wills Domain has the view down the valley. Either, not both.
5. 3pm

   The spa

   This is what you came here for. Don't fight it.
6. 6pm

   Sunset on the deck

   Bottle of something. The villa's own pool. There is genuinely no need to leave the property for sunset on day one.
7. 7.30pm

   Dinner

   In-villa is the right call. You're in for the night.

Day two opens up a bit. You're rested. You can take a longer drive.

1. 7.30am

   Drive to Eagle Bay

   Twenty-five minutes north up Caves Rd. Different coast entirely — calmer water, north-facing, no surf. Eagle Bay at sunrise is one of the gentle pleasures of this region.
2. 9am

   Breakfast at Eagle Bay Brewing or Bunkers in Dunsborough

   Both work. Eagle Bay Brewing if you want a slow paddock view. Bunkers if you want to be on the water.
3. 11am

   Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse

   Fifteen minutes from Eagle Bay. The lighthouse tour is worth doing once. The view from the top makes sense of the whole geography.
4. 12.30pm

   Drive south to the wineries

   Vasse Felix, Cullen, Pierro — all between you and Margaret River. Pick one for lunch.
5. 2pm

   A long winery lunch

   Vasse Felix's restaurant if you want a proper set lunch. Cullen for biodynamic and a garden seat. Wills Domain if you didn't go yesterday.
6. 4pm

   The gallery on Blythe Rd

   Eight minutes from Injidup. Walk in. Watch me work through the viewing window if I'm in. Pamela will be in the gallery.
7. 6pm

   Canal Rocks for sunset

   Ten minutes south of Injidup. Stay until the light goes off the granite.
8. 8pm

   Back to the retreat

   Quiet dinner. Sleep with the doors open.

I'm not a spa person. I make furniture and surf. So I'll say this honestly. The people who come to my gallery after a day at the Injidup spa look different from the people who come in after a day in the car. They walk slower. They look longer. They notice the joinery. The body changes the way the eye works, and a few hours in a treatment room does what driving around three wineries does not.

Treating yourself? Treat yourself. The spa is one of the better ones in the country and the cliff outside the treatment rooms is its own kind of meditation.

I'll give you a working list. Things change but these are the steady ones.

Lamonts. Closest to Yallingup. Big jarrah-floored room overlooking the vines. Long lunches and dinner. The kind of place I'd build if I were building rooms.

Wills Domain. A few minutes further. Set menu, valley view, more formal. Worth a long lunch booking made well in advance.

Vasse Felix. The oldest winery in the region. Restaurant upstairs above the cellar door. Bookings essential.

Cullen. Biodynamic, mostly garden-to-plate, smaller and quieter. Some of the best food in the South West, when you can get a table.

Eagle Bay Brewing. Twenty-five minutes north. Easier and louder. Pizzas and a paddock. Good for day two lunch when you don't want anything formal.

The Wise Wine. A little out of the way on Eagle Bay Rd. Worth the drive once.

Don't drive to Margaret River town for a meal. Forty minutes each way, and there's nothing down there that isn't equalled by something within fifteen minutes of you.

Don't try to do the whole Cape to Cape walk on a 48-hour trip. Pick a four-kilometre section and walk it well. The track will still be there next time.

Don't book the day too tight. The drive between things in the South West takes longer than it looks because you stop more than you think you will. A pelican on a fence. A wildflower you've never seen. Build in the slack.

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

The workshop and gallery is on Blythe Rd, eight minutes from Injidup. I built it in 1988. Solid jarrah walls, southwest limestone, built with my own hands at the same time I was learning to do anything well. You walk in, you see the work, you see the building, you see whichever piece you stop in front of. There's no pressure.

A lot of couples on a retreat trip down here use the gallery as the cultural counterpoint to the spa. Slow morning at the retreat, treatment, lunch, then they wander in mid-afternoon and stay an hour. Pamela curates the broader gallery (Alan Fox's glass, Julia Carter's paintings, Dylan Fox's photography, Elani's work) so it's a working studio, but also a small art space. The 2009 expansion let us bring those other makers in. The gallery is better with more than just me in it.

From Injidup, head out to Caves Rd, turn right, drive five minutes to Yallingup township, then up Bussell Hwy and right on Blythe Rd. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. You'll see the limestone walls.

Most guests at Injidup are couples. Most of you have come here for some version of slow time together. If that's the brief, the itinerary above is built for it. For an anniversary or a milestone, the couples weekend write-up is the longer take. The gallery has a few pieces that have ended up as anniversary gifts. Happy to talk about that when you walk in.

For more on the wineries that are closest to you, the cellar doors near Yallingup. For Smiths Beach which is the next beach over, Smiths Beach the way locals do it.

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

At Injidup on a Saturday morning, the Margaret River Farmers Market is on. It's a forty-minute drive south and back, and it's the best produce in the South West. Sourdough, eggs, smallgoods, fresh fish off the boat, olive oil that's been pressed up the road. I go most Saturdays. Bring an esky. Plan lunch around what you buy.

Can't make Saturday? The Yallingup General Store has good basics. Wills Domain has a small produce stand at the cellar door from time to time.

Forty-eight hours at Injidup, done right, looks like this. One slow morning. Two long lunches. One long walk. One spa treatment. One sunset where you don't drive anywhere. One sunset where you drive ten minutes for it. One visit to a working studio. One swim in the ocean.

Everything else is bonus.

The retreat does what it does. The country around it is the rest of the gift. Don't try to take it all home in two days. Take a corner of it. Come back for the rest.