[Region]
Margaret River Pro: Rest Day Guide
*A local's notes on what to do when the surf comp goes on hold — beaches, walks, and where to eat while the swell sorts itself out at Surfers Point.*
A rest day at the Margaret River Pro is not a day off. It's a day the comp organisers are watching the swell charts and waiting for conditions to come good.
Travelled down to watch the Margaret River Pro WSL surf competition and woken up to a "no comp today" call? You've got two choices. Sit at Surfers Point waiting for word, or use the day the way the locals use it, which is to go somewhere else and let the swell make its own decisions.
This is my list of what to do on a rest day. I live ten minutes north of Surfers Point and I've been here since 1982 through every iteration of the comp. The rest days are the ones I remember best, because they're the days the visitors actually see the region instead of just the contest.
Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
First, check the call early
The WSL posts the call by about 7am most rest days. Comp's off? That's your day. Don't sit around in the carpark hoping. The pros are doing other things: gym, ice baths, video review, naps. You should too.
What the rest day usually means is that the swell is wrong (too small, too crossed-up, too big and chaotic). On those days the rest of the region is often doing fine. A 12-foot mess at Surfers can be a beautiful 4-foot wave at Yallingup, or it can be a perfectly calm day at Meelup on the eastern side of the cape.
Option one: A surf of your own
Brought a board? This is the day.
Yallingup main break is the closest to Surfers Point that's not Surfers Point. It's a long, mellower wave that suits the intermediate to advanced surfer, and on a rest day at the Pro it's often the right size for a fun session. Smiths Beach next door has a beach break that handles a wider range of conditions. North Point, when it's working, is a serious wave for serious surfers. Don't paddle out there to find out you're not one.
Photo: David Stanley, CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Beginners, drive around to the bay side (Meelup or Eagle Bay) and book a lesson or just paddle around in the calm. The east side of the cape is sheltered from the south-westerly that often calls off the comp.
Option two: Walk the Cape to Cape
The 135km Cape to Cape runs right along the coast you've been watching. On a rest day, the section from Sugarloaf Rock north to Cape Naturaliste is the one to do. About an hour and a half each way, all of it along the cliffs, with the kind of views that explain why the comp is held here in the first place.
Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
The other section worth knowing about is the southern stretch from Prevelly down past Boodjidup Beach. It runs through wildflowers in spring (the Pro tends to land in April-May, which is autumn; the flowers won't be out but the light is the best of the year). Pack water and a wind layer.
Cape to Cape day walks near Yallingup
Option three: The eastern beaches
Wind up at Surfers Point? The bay side is your friend.
Meelup, Eagle Bay, Bunker Bay, Dunsborough town beach. Pick one. They sit on the inside of the cape and they're sheltered from the south-westerly that ruins most rest days at the comp. Calm water, white sand, the kind of beach where you can have lunch on a rug and a swim afterwards without the wind blowing it down the beach.
Eagle Bay does sunrise particularly well for anyone making an early start of the rest-day call.
Option four: Canal Rocks at any time of day
Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Canal Rocks is the granite formation just south of Yallingup where the swell funnels through a channel between two granite shelves. On a big swell day, exactly the day the comp gets called off for being too big, Canal Rocks is at its best. You'll see why.
Don't get on the rocks. Watch from the platform. People have been swept off in conditions a lot less than what runs through there during a 15-foot south swell.
Option five: Eat properly
A rest day is a chance to do a long lunch. The competitors aren't doing one but you can.
Vasse Felix, Voyager, Cullen, Howard Park: any of the larger wineries that do food are worth a long stop. Book ahead. The wine country pulls in a different crowd during comp week and the tables fill up when there's a rest day on.
Without a winery booking, the Margaret River Farmers Market on a Saturday morning is one of my favourite places in the region. Whatever's in season is on a table: coffee, pastries, fish, local beef, jam, cheese, flowers. Saturday rest day? That's your morning sorted.
The gallery, while you're in the area
I won't pretend the gallery competes with the surf, but rest days are when a lot of comp visitors find their way to it. We're ten minutes north of Surfers Point on Blythe Rd. Workshop window, jarrah walls, southwest limestone. I built it in 1988 and it's still where I work every day.
Gallery as cultural rest-day stop. Blythe Rd, Yallingup. Open most days. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. The workshop's usually going.
The surf and the woodwork have more in common than people think. Both of them are about reading what's in front of you and responding to it without forcing it. I learned more about furniture from twenty years of surfing than from any short course I ever did. The wave decides what you do. The wood is the same.
The wave decides what you do — the wood is the same. Both of them are about reading what's in front of you and not forcing it.
A few practical notes
Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
the local guide to Yallingup Beach
The Pro is the reason a lot of people come down here for the first time. The rest days are the reason a few of them keep coming back. The contest is the part you watch on a screen later. The rest day is the part you'll remember.
Plan your visit to Yallingup.
Directions & hours →