Margaret River with Kids: 12 Stops

The region is good for kids in the way most adults forget. There's room, the water's right there, and most of the best stuff is free or close to it.

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

I don't have small kids anymore, but I had them once, and over the years I've watched a steady stream of grandkids, nieces, nephews, and visiting friends' children move through this place. They all do the same thing: start hesitant, end barefoot. The region knows how to handle them. Here's twelve stops that will fill a long weekend or a week, depending on how much you cram in.

Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. Most of the stops below are within a half-hour drive of Yallingup. If you base yourselves between Yallingup and Dunsborough, you won't be in the car for more than twenty minutes at a time.

Start here. It's the easiest win in the region, and the kids will remember it.

Photo: Public domain, Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The jetty is just under two kilometres long, too far for most kids to walk in one go, and that's where the train comes in. Adult tickets are $16, kids $10, infants free. The return trip takes about 45 minutes including a stop at the end. You can also use the train ticket as a day pass for walking, which is the move if you want to do one direction by train and the other on foot. The Busselton Jetty train and observatory site has the timetable.

The Underwater Observatory at the end is the upgrade: $38 adults, $22 kids, includes the train and a 45-minute guided tour eight metres below the surface. If the kids are old enough to follow a guide, do it. The marine life that's built up on the pilings is genuinely something.

Five minutes from Yallingup. The first show cave to open in Western Australia, back in 1900. The Wadandi people knew it long before.

Photo: SeanMack, CC BY 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

There are several tour options, from a self-guided semi-explore to a full adventure tour with helmets and torches. For most families the standard guided tour is the right call. About 90 minutes, plenty of room for questions, and the moment when the guide turns the lights off in the chamber and lets you feel what underground means is one most kids talk about for weeks. Book your Ngilgi Cave tour ahead in school holidays.

For a comparison of the region's caves, a side-by-side of the show caves or caves with children, what actually works for which ones suit which age.

Twelve minutes from Ngilgi, on Caves Road. A genuine wooden maze, a mini golf course, and enough lawn that smaller kids can run between rounds.

Open seven days, 9.30am to 5pm. Adult maze pass $22, mini golf $24, combo $41. Kids 5-15 are $17 each, under-fours are free in the maze and $17 for mini golf. The combo pass for a family of two adults and two kids works out around $140. Tickets and times at Yallingup Maze. They close for a few days around Christmas, Australia Day, and a brief February maintenance window.

The maze itself is bigger than it looks. I've watched grown adults take half an hour to find their way out. There's a viewing tower if a parent wants to stand above and watch the kids navigate.

Ten minutes south of Margaret River township, near Boranup, is Eagles Heritage Raptor Centre, the largest collection of birds of prey in the southern hemisphere, run by people who clearly love the work. They do flight demonstrations through the day. Smaller kids will lose their minds when the wedge-tailed eagle takes off from a glove.

It's a bit of a drive from Yallingup, so I'd pair it with a Margaret River township day: bookstore, bakery, the chocolate factory.

For the under-tens. Sunflowers is on Yelverton Road, just inland from Yallingup. Hand-feeding, baby animals, tractor rides. The kind of place where a three-year-old will be ruined for everything else for the rest of the day, in a good way. Check current opening hours before you go. It runs school holiday programs and the regular hours shift around them.

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

This is where I send every family who asks. Smiths is patrolled in summer (December to Easter, roughly), the beach is wide and long, and at low tide there are rock pools at the southern end that will keep a curious kid occupied for hours. There's a little surf school that runs lessons from October through the warmer months: small group, gentle whitewater, the kind of first lesson that sticks. Smiths Beach the way locals do it

Park at the resort, walk down. Surf shop sells boogie boards if you didn't bring one.

Twenty minutes north of Yallingup, around the cape. Sheltered, no surf, white sand, the kind of beach a young family was invented for. Pack lunch and you'll be there for half a day. There's a track at the eastern end that climbs the headland for a fifteen-minute walk if the older kids need a stretch. The Dunsborough beach guide lines Meelup up against Eagle Bay and the Town Beach. A farm stay earlier in the trip is the other family move.

The beach next door, Castle Bay, is even quieter on a busy day.

The walk up is short and paved, manageable for kids from about five up. The view from the top is the whole reason most of us live here. Between September and December you'll see humpbacks heading south on their migration. The lighthouse tour goes up to the lantern room. Kids generally find it more interesting than they expect.

There's a 1.3km return walk to the whale-watching platform from the car park for the longer version.

Twelve minutes from the lighthouse, on Blythe Rd. I'm not going to pretend a furniture gallery is the most thrilling stop for a four-year-old. But here's the thing — the workshop viewing window is genuinely interesting to kids over about eight. They can see the lathe running, watch a piece of timber turn into a leg, ask questions through the window. I always make time. Pam will give them a colouring page if they're younger. The gallery itself is about half an hour, comfortable, and the timber smell is one most kids remember.

A short walk down to a footbridge over a granite channel where the Indian Ocean pushes through. Hold the smaller kids' hands. The rocks are slippery in places. For kids old enough to be steady on their feet, it's twenty of the most interesting minutes on the coast. Try to time it for late afternoon when the light's on the rocks. how to do Canal Rocks for the light

Don't try the whole 135km with kids. Don't. But there's a beautiful stretch from Yallingup Beach to Smiths Beach that runs about an hour each way with kids who can walk. Beach, dune, bush, beach. Pack water and a snack. If the kids are smaller, the section from the Wyadup car park down to the rocky pools is twenty minutes one way and a good first taste.

Saturday mornings, eight to noon, behind the education campus in town. I go every Saturday. Pam too, sometimes. Take the kids. There's a little playground next door, the food stalls do everything from bao to crepes, and the kids can pick out fruit, cheese, and bread for the day ahead. It's about as relaxed an introduction to a market as you'll get.

1. Day 1

   Arrival + beach

   Drive in, settle, walk down to whichever beach is closest. Dinner at Yallingup Woodfired Bread or Caves House.
2. Day 2

   Cave + maze

   Ngilgi in the morning, lunch, Yallingup Maze in the afternoon. Smiths or Yallingup Beach to finish.
3. Day 3

   Jetty day

   Drive to Busselton. Jetty train, Observatory if the kids are old enough, fish and chips on the foreshore. Home for an early dinner.
4. Day 4

   Cape + market

   Saturday market in the morning, drive up to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse, Meelup or Eagle Bay for the afternoon. Slow exit.

For more Yallingup-specific family stuff, a family day in Yallingup.

There are more stops than this: the chocolate factory, the toffee factory, the sheep cheese place, the dairy with the ice creams. The region doesn't run out of things to do with kids. But twelve is enough to plan a trip around. Anything beyond is gravy.