Staying at Smiths Beach Resort? Local-Only Stops

If you're reading this from a villa at Smiths Beach Resort Yallingup, you've already done the hard part. You're in one of the best corners of the South West coast and the surf is at the end of the path. The question is what to do with the rest of your time. So this is a short list of places I send my own visitors when they ask, all within a fifteen-minute drive.

I'm John. My workshop and gallery is eight minutes up Caves Rd from where you're standing. We've been on Blythe Rd in Yallingup since 1982. I'll come back to that.

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

I'll get this out of the way. Most guests at the resort walk down to Smiths, look at it, swim or surf, walk back, and never get the full picture. Smiths is a big beach. It runs north for over a kilometre and the south end and the north end are entirely different beaches. The south end, near the resort path, is where the surf school works and where most people swim. Walk twenty minutes north along the sand and you've got the same beach to yourself.

The headland at the north end is worth scrambling onto if you're sure-footed. The water on that side picks up colour you don't get from the resort lawn.

A longer read on the beach itself is Smiths Beach, properly for the deeper take.

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

Do one thing besides the beach, do this. Canal Rocks is five minutes south down Smiths Beach Rd, back onto Caves Rd, then a left at the sign. There's a granite outcrop where the sea pushes through narrow channels and a wooden footbridge across one of them. You can walk it in twenty minutes. You can sit on it for two hours.

Go for sunset. The light hits the granite low across the water and the whole headland turns colours you don't see anywhere else. Bring a jacket. The wind doesn't quit even on a still day. The full timing on Canal Rocks at sunset is its own piece.

Photo: SeanMack, CC BY 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

This is the indoor option for the day the weather turns. Ngilgi Cave is on Yallingup Caves Rd, about fifteen minutes from the resort. It's one of the original tourist caves in the South West, first opened to the public in the 1890s. The formations are extraordinary. The temperature underground is roughly the same year round, around 18 to 19 degrees, which is the other reason it's a good rainy-day move.

You can do the self-guided wander or book a tour. The guided ones are better for first-timers. The rangers know the stories. There's a small cafe at the entrance. Planning a half-day around the cave goes deeper.

This isn't much of a township. It's a general store, a couple of holiday rentals, the surf beach, the dunes. The Caves House Hotel is on the hill: old building, pub downstairs, decent counter meal. Yallingup Beach itself is the calmer-water option than Smiths if you've got young kids, with a sheltered lagoon at the south end.

The drive in from Caves Rd down into Yallingup township is one of the better short drives in the region. The road drops through karri and peppermint and then opens onto the bay. Do it once with no destination just to do it.

You're in the heart of the Wilyabrup wine district whether you realise it or not. Most of the famous names (Vasse Felix, Cullen, Moss Wood, Pierro, Howard Park, Woodlands) are between eight and fifteen minutes from the resort. Non-drinkers can still visit the cellar doors for the buildings, the gardens, and the food.

Vasse Felix is the oldest. Cullen is biodynamic and the lunch there is one of the best in the region. Lamonts is closer to Yallingup and the room is the kind I'd build if I were building rooms: exposed beams, jarrah floors, big windows on the bush.

I won't run through them all here. The wineries deserve their own list and I've written one elsewhere on the site. The point is, you don't need to drive thirty minutes south to Margaret River for the wineries. Most of them are on your doorstep.

The Cape to Cape Track runs right past the resort. Most guests walk fifty metres of it and turn back. The section between Smiths Beach and Canal Rocks is one of the best half-days on the whole track. About four kilometres each way, mostly flat, on a clifftop. Pack water and a hat. Start early or late. The middle of the day in summer is unkind.

For a shorter version, just walk from the resort north along the cliff for half an hour and turn around. You'll have seen as much coast as most people do in a week.

Here's where I do the gallery bit. I'll be quick.

My workshop and gallery is on Blythe Rd. From the resort, you turn left out the gate, follow Smiths Beach Rd back to Caves Rd, turn right, follow it for about five minutes to Yallingup, then a left up Bussell Hwy, then a right on Blythe Rd. There's a sign. You'll see jarrah walls and southwest limestone. I built it in 1988 with my own hands and the same timber I work with every day.

The gallery is a working studio. The viewing window into the workshop is the whole point. You can stand and watch me make whatever I'm making. There's no pressure to buy anything. Pamela runs the gallery and will talk to you about whichever piece you stop in front of. Most days that's what happens. People come in for ten minutes, stay for forty, leave with a story.

From Smiths Beach Resort: left out the gate, Smiths Beach Rd to Caves Rd, right to Yallingup, left on Bussell Hwy, right on Blythe Rd. Eight minutes. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd.

Lamonts is closest for a long lunch. The Caves House Hotel is closest for something simpler. Yallingup Brewing Co, about twelve minutes away, is good for an afternoon with a pizza. The Wise Wine restaurant is on Eagle Bay Rd, about fifteen minutes the other way, and worth the drive with a booking in hand.

Within the resort itself there's a cafe and a restaurant, both decent. I've eaten at both. The breakfast on the deck overlooking the bush is a fine way to start a day before you do any of the above.

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

1. Day 1, 7am

   Smiths Beach

   Walk north along the sand. Empty beach, soft light. Forty minutes there and back.
2. 9am

   Resort breakfast

   Slowly.
3. 11am

   Cape to Cape, Smiths to Canal Rocks

   Four kilometres along the clifftop. Carry water.
4. 1pm

   Lamonts

   Long lunch.
5. 4pm

   Canal Rocks

   Stay for sunset.
6. Day 2, 9am

   Ngilgi Cave

   Tour, then the cafe at the top.
7. 12pm

   Yallingup Brewing or the Caves House

   Lunch.
8. 2pm

   The gallery on Blythe Rd

   Twenty minutes. Or two hours. Up to you.
9. 4pm

   Smiths Beach

   Back where you started. Swim if it's warm.

I won't talk about the resort. You've already booked it. What I will say is this: the villas at the back with the deeper bush behind them are quieter than the ones near the pool. If you're back for a second visit, ask for one of those. The kangaroos come through at dusk.

Don't drive to Margaret River town for the day if it's your only day. It's forty minutes each way and you'll spend the day in the car. Everything good is closer than people think. Pick three things from this list. Walk slowly between them. Stop at the gallery if you walk past it. Have a beer at the brewery before you drive back.

The resort is good. The beach is great. The rest of it is just there waiting for you to notice it.

That's the list. Forty years in, this is still the route I'd give you.

Read next: how to do Canal Rocks for the light · the Ngilgi Cave half-day.