Margaret River in Spring: Wildflowers, Whales, and Quiet Roads

Spring down here is the quiet version of the place. The wildflowers come in waves from August through November, the humpbacks pass the cape from August onward, and the roads are still empty enough that you can pull over and look at something for ten minutes without anyone behind you.

September is the month I'd pick if I were planning a trip from somewhere else. The light has changed. The wind drops a few notches. The bushland between Yallingup and the cape goes from grey-green to scattered with colour: yellow, pink, white, the small orchids if you know where to look. And you can do all of it without lining up for anything.

I'm not a botanist. I work with wood, and most of what I know about the plants down here is what I've learnt walking. But this region is one of the great wildflower spots in Western Australia, and Cape Naturaliste is one of the better corners of it. There are over 8,000 species in the southwest, and you'll see a fair slice of them between August and November if you walk the right tracks.

Where to look. The Cape Naturaliste lighthouse walks are the easy entry point: well-signed, flat in places, downhill in others, and the coastal heath is full of banksias, kangaroo paws, bottle brush, and the small purple Dunsborough Spider Orchid if you're paying attention. The lighthouse precinct alone, even without walking far, gives you a real cross-section.

For something deeper, walk a section of the Cape to Cape between Cape Naturaliste and Sugarloaf. About ninety minutes return at a gentle pace. The track passes through several different vegetation zones (coastal heath, peppermint, and then back to heath), and each one carries different flowers. October is when the bottlebrush goes on.

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

With more time, the Whicher Range and the inland blocks around Nannup do something different: taller wildflowers, more orchids, denser bush. But for most visitors, the lighthouse loops and a piece of the Cape to Cape will be enough to understand what people are talking about.

Humpbacks start showing up off Cape Naturaliste in August. They've come south from breeding grounds in the Kimberley and they're passing through Geographe Bay on their way back to Antarctica. The pod groups change through the season. September and October are the heaviest months for sightings: mothers with calves, juveniles, the occasional southern right.

From land, the best vantage points are Cape Naturaliste lighthouse (the walks out to Sugarloaf give you elevated coast), Bunker Bay headland, and Eagle Bay. A flat, calm morning is what you want. The blow is what you spot first, a vertical plume against the horizon, then the fluke a few minutes later. Bring binoculars. You'll see more than you expect.

To be properly out there, Naturaliste Charters and All Sea Charters run whale watching boats out of Dunsborough through the season. Both run on the same coast, both are good, both will get you close enough to feel small. Book ahead. September weekends sell out.

You can stand at Cape Naturaliste in October and see a humpback pass while a wildflower the size of your thumbnail blooms at your feet. That's the spring here.

This is the part nobody markets and it's the best reason to come. From January through Easter the region is busy. From mid-December the same. School holidays. Long weekends. November starts filling. But August, September, and the first half of October are quiet weeks. The cellar doors are open, the cafes are open, the gallery is open, and the foot traffic is half what it'll be in January.

You can have a Saturday lunch at Vasse Felix without a booking made six weeks out. You can find a park at Smiths Beach at midday. The Cape Naturaliste lighthouse precinct, which gets standing-room only on a Christmas Day, will have you, a couple from Adelaide, and one ranger.

Take advantage of it. This is when the region is itself.

Friday afternoon, drive down. Stop at Sunflowers Animal Farm with kids; it's on the highway near Ludlow. Otherwise, push through to Yallingup and walk the headland at sunset. Saturday morning, farmers market in Margaret River township, eight to noon, every Saturday, weather doesn't matter. Citrus, eggs, garlic, the first asparagus.

Then drive up to Cape Naturaliste. Park at the lighthouse. Walk the loop or push out toward Sugarloaf. Take an hour. Look at the flowers. Look at the water for blows. Lunch at Bunker Bay or back in Dunsborough.

Saturday afternoon, the cellar doors. Pick three. Don't try to do seven. I'd go Vasse Felix, Cullen, and Stella Bella, but everyone has their own list. Or break it up with a stop at the gallery on Blythe Rd. See below.

Sunday morning, a piece of the Cape to Cape. Yallingup to Smiths is about an hour each way, mostly clifftop, plenty of wildflowers in the heath above the dunes. Get back to the car park by ten before it fills.

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

The other thing September brings is the Margaret River Region Open Studios, which runs over two weekends in mid-to-late September and pulls together 150-plus artists from Busselton to Augusta. Painters, ceramicists, glass blowers, photographers, sculptors, woodworkers. Studios in barns, in railway carriages, in lounge rooms. It's free, it's self-guided, and it's the best thing the region's art community does all year.

We're part of it. The workshop on Blythe Rd is open all weekend across both Open Studios weekends. Pamela's about, I'm usually working on something visible, and we have more pieces in the gallery than at any other point in the year. Driving for the wildflowers, build it into the weekend. when the studios open up for the broader trail map.

The gallery sits about fifteen minutes off the route between Cape Naturaliste and Vasse Felix. Easy add to a Saturday afternoon. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd.

It's the version of the region you'd want if you only ever came once. You get the weather (mostly), you get the colour, you get the whales, you get the wineries with room to move, and you get the makers in their studios because they haven't been worn flat by a summer of foot traffic yet. The locals are still themselves. The light is what it is in October: long, gold, low across the headlands by four in the afternoon.

whale watching from Cape Naturaliste for more on what you'll see and where. the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse guide for the lighthouse precinct itself. And the September whale-watching window if you're trying to time a trip.

I'd come in September. If you can only pick one week, pick the third week. Don't tell anyone.