Things to Do in Cowaramup

Cowaramup sits on Caves Road between Yallingup and Margaret River town. Most people drive through it. Some stop at the cows. The ones who know stop at the brewery.

Photo: undefined · via Wikimedia Commons

It's been a working dairy town since the early 1900s. The name is Noongar, from kuara, the purple-crowned lorikeet that nests in the local marri trees. The fibreglass cows arrived in the early 2000s as a tourism stunt that worked better than it had any right to. Forty-odd of them now line the main street and the side roads. Kids love them. Adults photograph them ironically and then get back in the car. Either way, the town gets the foot traffic.

What follows is what's actually worth your time once you're there.

A working country town with one main intersection, half a dozen shops, a pub, a bakery, a brewery, and dairy paddocks running out in every direction. Population a little over a thousand. The town's on the Bussell Hwy and Caves Road junction, which means it sees a lot of passing traffic and a lot of people who never stop.

The shops on the main street are a mix: a deli, a homewares place, a gallery or two, the bakery, and the kind of small-town businesses that survive because the locals shop there. It's not Margaret River town and it doesn't want to be. The pace is slower. You can park outside the bakery and walk the whole strip in fifteen minutes.

The cows are the tourist hook. There's a map at the visitor info point if you want to find all of them. I wouldn't, but kids might.

The brewery is the reason most adults stop in Cowaramup. It sits just off the main street in a converted shed and it's been there long enough now to be one of the established names in regional WA brewing.

The beer is honest and well-made. I don't drink it (I'm a wine man), but I've sat in the beer garden plenty of times with people who do, and the verdict's always the same: properly cold, properly served, no nonsense. The lineup runs from a pale ale at one end to a stout at the other, with seasonal releases that change through the year.

The food is pub-shed standard. Burgers, schnitzels, a wood-fired pizza menu that's better than it needs to be, and a kids' menu that means the family table doesn't fight. The room has long timber benches, a fire in the corner in winter, and a grass area out the back where the kids run. Dogs welcome.

Open from late morning most days, busiest from about midday through early evening. They don't take bookings for the general bar, but they do for the larger group tables. Worth a call ahead in peak season.

the four breweries of the region driven properly

The Cowaramup Bakery is the other reason to stop. It's on the main street, easy to spot. The pies are the thing. Beef and mushroom, lamb and rosemary, vegetarian options that aren't an afterthought. The pastry is properly laminated, the filling is generous, and they're hot out of the oven from mid-morning.

I usually get a pie and an iced coffee and eat it standing on the footpath outside. The bench in front of the bakery is generally taken by retirees doing the same thing. There's no shame in joining them.

The sourdough is also good, if you've got a kitchen to take it to. They sell out by lunchtime on weekends. Get there early.

The Cowaramup Bakery pie. Eaten on the footpath, standing up. That's how the locals do it.

Cowaramup has a cluster of wineries within five minutes' drive that don't get the same attention as the Wilyabrup-end big names. Worth knowing about.

Knee Deep Wines is on Johnson Rd, a couple of minutes out of town. The cellar door is small and the wines are unfussy. They do a relaxed lunch menu in season. Not a destination on the scale of Vasse Felix, but a good stop if you're already in Cowaramup.

Brown Hill Estate is on Rosa Brook Rd, slightly further out. Family-run, modest cellar door, decent reds. Old-school in a good way.

Hay Shed Hill is between Cowaramup and the coast, ten minutes on the back roads. Bigger operation, larger cellar door, a kitchen that does platters and lighter food. Worth the drive.

For the proper cellar door lunch wineries in the area, the bigger names (Vasse Felix, Voyager, Cullen) are all within fifteen minutes of Cowaramup. The cellar doors with the best food covers those, and the wider self-drive map sets the whole region in context.

Photo: undefined · via Wikimedia Commons

Just south of Cowaramup on Harmans Mill Rd, you'll hit the Margaret River Chocolate Company. It's a tourist barn and it knows it, but the chocolate is good and the kids love it. The free tastings are a draw. The factory window lets you watch the production. There's a café attached for lunch.

It's not where I'd take a serious chocolate fan (Gabriel in Yallingup is the better bet for bean-to-bar), but for a family stop on the way through, it works.

Gabriel Chocolate and the bean-to-bar story for the comparison.

A couple of the homewares and antique shops in Cowaramup are worth a poke. The Old Settlement, when it's open, has rustic country bits and the kind of farm tools that turn into garden art at someone's beach house. Not regular hours, so it's pot luck.

The general gallery presence in Cowaramup is light compared to Dunsborough or Yallingup. For the broader regional gallery picture, the galleries of the Margaret River region is the proper list.

Photo: undefined · via Wikimedia Commons

Honestly, an hour to an hour and a half. The bakery, a walk down the main street with the cows, the brewery for lunch, and you're done. It's a stop on a longer day, not a destination itself.

If you're combining with wineries (which is the right move), allow half a day. Bakery first, brewery for lunch, then a winery on the way home, or vice versa.

Cowaramup is on the Bussell Hwy / Caves Rd junction, twenty-five minutes from Yallingup and ten minutes from Margaret River town. Parking is free and easy on the main street. The brewery has its own car park. Most shops open seven days in summer; some close Monday or Tuesday in winter.

If you're coming north from Cowaramup back to the Yallingup workshop, it's about fifteen minutes via the Bussell Hwy. Turn left at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd, and you're there. Google sometimes routes via Wildwood Rd. Don't take it.

Coming back from a Cowaramup afternoon to Yallingup? The workshop on Blythe Rd is fifteen minutes north. Bussell Hwy, left at the Carbunup store. Free gallery entry, workshop viewing window, kettle on most afternoons until five.

Cowaramup is a stop, not a day. The bakery and the brewery are the two reasons to pull over, and the cows are a five-minute photo for the kids. The wineries around the town are a good adjunct to anything you're doing on Caves Rd. People who plan a whole day around Cowaramup come away underwhelmed. People who treat it as the middle of a winery day come away happy.

The town earns its place on the map. It just doesn't need more than its share of your time.