Things to Do in Dunsborough

Dunsborough is fifteen minutes from my workshop. Good coffee in the morning, Meelup Beach out one side, Cape Naturaliste out the other. It took me twenty years to stop treating it as a place I drove through.

Photo: Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

I moved down here in 1988 and built the workshop on Blythe Rd that year. Dunsborough was a sleepy fishing town with a caravan park and a pub. Now it has decent coffee, three or four restaurants worth your time, and the same beach. The growth has been kind on the whole. The bay still looks the same from the water.

This is a long take. If you only have a few hours, skip to the day plan at the bottom and back-reference. If you're staying a few nights, read the lot.

The town sits on Geographe Bay. The bay faces north. That single fact explains everything that's good about Dunsborough's beaches: no swell, calm water, swimmable nine months of the year. The surf coast (Yallingup, Smiths Beach, Injidup) sits a short drive south, facing west into the Indian Ocean. Different country entirely.

Google Maps sometimes misdirects out of Yallingup via Wildwood Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. From there it's fifteen minutes north via Caves Road or the Hwy. I take Caves Road because I'd rather drive past vines than past anything else.

Park once in town. The main street is a four-minute walk end to end. You don't need to move the car all day.

This is the headline. Three beaches inside fifteen minutes of the centre, each doing a different job.

Photo: Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Town Beach is the one a hundred metres from the main street. Walk down from the bakery with a coffee. Shallow, calm, family-friendly. There's a jetty for a five-minute stroll. This is the morning-after-a-long-night beach. Easy. Low commitment.

Meelup is ten minutes east along Meelup Beach Road. Granite headlands the colour of weak tea in the afternoon. The car park fills by 10am in summer; in autumn you can have it almost to yourself. The walking track from Meelup runs about four kilometres east toward Eagle Bay, passing Castle Bay and Point Picquet. Whales between September and December if the timing is right.

Photo: Western Australian Government, CC BY 2.5 AU · via Wikimedia Commons

Eagle Bay is fifteen minutes east, past Meelup. Slightly bigger beach, sometimes a small wind chop, and the suburb behind it has the holiday houses everyone wants. The brewery is up the back. The bay itself is north-facing like Meelup. Calm most days.

If you're choosing one for swimming with kids: town beach or Meelup. If you're choosing one to sit on with a book: Meelup. If you're choosing one with a long lunch at the back: Eagle Bay. For the deep dive on which is which, the beach guide breaks it down.

Fifteen minutes north of town. The lighthouse sits at the very tip of the cape, looking out at the meeting of Geographe Bay and the Indian Ocean. You can do the guided tour for the history or skip it and walk straight to the lookout. Both work.

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

The lighthouse opens at 9am and closes at 4 or 5pm depending on the season. The carpark and walking tracks are open later, which matters at sunset. The view from the rocks below the lighthouse is, for my money, the best sunset spot in Geographe Bay.

A few tracks branch off the main carpark. Bunker Bay lookout. Sugarloaf Rock lookout, which is a short drive back along the cape and worth its own paragraph. The Cape to Cape Track starts at the lighthouse. Walk twenty minutes south on it for cliff views that feel a long way from anywhere. the lighthouse guide for the longer take.

Sugarloaf Rock sits about ten minutes south of the lighthouse on the cape road. Park, walk a hundred metres, look out at the offshore stack. Red-tailed tropicbirds nest there in summer. The autumn sunset from this spot is one I never get tired of.

Eagle Bay Brewing Co is fifteen minutes east of town, inland from the bay. Open daily 11am to 5pm, kitchen closes at 3pm midweek out of summer. Family-run, paddock-to-glass beer, food that takes the place seriously. Wood-fired pizza, slow-cooked lamb, the Sunday roast in winter.

The lawn is set up for kids. There's a fire pit in winter. Twenty-eight beers on tap. The pale ale is what I'd order. I'm not a heavy drinker (one beer and a coffee). The food is the reason to go.

Book on weekends or holidays. Walk in any other time. the brewery day for a full day built around the lawn.

Dunsborough has more good restaurants per capita than anywhere this side of Fremantle. The list is shorter than people make out, but the hits are real.

Yarri. The room is Aaron Carr's, who ran the Vasse Felix kitchen for twenty-one years. Open seven days from 4pm. Three-course or six-course tasting, both with optional wine matches. Book in advance, especially on weekends.

The Pourhouse. More casual. Good for a non-tasting dinner. Local beer on tap.

Dunsborough Bakery. Open by 7am. Sourdough out of the oven by 7.30. The pies at lunchtime are the best in the region. Cash queue some mornings; worth the wait.

Dunsborough Tavern. Honest pub food, beer garden, plays it straight. Sometimes that's exactly what you want.

Wise Wine restaurant. Out of town toward Eagle Bay. The view from the dining room is one of the best in the region: straight down to Geographe Bay through a stand of trees.

The cafes along Naturaliste Terrace cover coffee. There are half a dozen and they all do it well; pick by what's least busy on the morning you're there.

Dunsborough's main street isn't long. You can walk it end to end in fifteen minutes. But there are a few things worth doing.

The bookshop at the western end has the best selection of Australian fiction I've found anywhere in the South West. The owner reads everything she stocks. There's a butcher who makes his own sausages. There's an outdoor shop for sunscreen, hats, and the boots you forgot. There are surf shops for kids' rashies.

The op shops on the side streets are worth a look. I've found jarrah cabinets in one of them, old colonial pieces nobody knew what to do with. Bought one back to the workshop and used the timber in three different commissions.

Geographe Bay is the best snorkelling on this stretch of coast. The HMAS Swan is sunk just offshore as a dive wreck. That's a boat charter, not a walk-in. From the shore at Castle Bay or Meelup on a calm day, put a mask on and you'll see seagrass, small fish, and limestone reef in three metres of water.

Hire a stand-up paddleboard from one of the shops on the main street if the bay is glassy. Paddle out a hundred metres and look back at the coast. Different perspective entirely.

September to December, humpbacks come into Geographe Bay to rest with their calves. You see them from the foreshore some days, blowing and breaching while you eat a sandwich. From Castle Rock and the Meelup track, clearer. From a charter out of Dunsborough harbour, at twenty metres. Not a marketing claim. They come every year.

Dunsborough as a day trip works fine. Drive in from Yallingup or Margaret River town, spend a day, leave. Most people do this.

Dunsborough as a base for a longer stay also works, with a caveat: you give up the surf coast on your doorstep. Smiths Beach, Yallingup, Injidup. Those need a fifteen-minute drive. If you're a surfer or you want walking-distance access to the bigger swell, base in Yallingup. If you're a swimmer, a coffee-and-bookshop person, or you have kids, Dunsborough is the better base. where to stay in Dunsborough for the accommodation take.

The big tourist shopping arcades are fine for sunscreen. Beyond that, Dunsborough isn't a shopping town. Don't come for retail.

The harbour itself isn't worth a visit unless you're getting on a charter boat. Functional, not scenic.

The Country Club golf course is fine. Not a destination unless you golf.

1. 8.30am

   Dunsborough Bakery

   Coffee and a pastry. Walk down to the town beach. Twenty minutes.
2. 9.30am

   Meelup Beach

   Sit on the sand. Walk to Point Picquet if the mood takes you.
3. 12.30pm

   Eagle Bay Brewing

   Pizza and one beer on the lawn.
4. 2.30pm

   Cape Naturaliste

   Lighthouse lookout, twenty minutes on the Cape to Cape, Sugarloaf on the way out.
5. 5pm

   Town beach

   Swim if the day's been warm. Coffee on the main street after.
6. 7pm

   Yarri or The Pourhouse

   Dinner. Yarri if you booked, Pourhouse if you didn't.

For the version of this post that consciously avoids wineries, things to do in Dunsborough that aren't a winery. For a rainy day, the rainy-day plan. For the bigger regional picture, a day trip from Yallingup.

The gallery sits halfway between Dunsborough and Yallingup, off Caves Road on Blythe Rd. Heading back toward Yallingup from Eagle Bay or Cape Naturaliste, it's a five-minute detour. Pamela is usually at the front, I'm in the workshop through the viewing window. We're open Monday to Saturday. The walls are jarrah and southwest limestone, built in 1988. The work inside is mine, Alan Fox's glass, Julia Carter's paintings, Dylan Fox's photography. Half an hour easy.

Dunsborough rewards people who don't try too hard. Walk the main street. Sit on a beach. Eat a long lunch. Drive out to the cape at sunset. That's the place doing what it does best.