Things to Do in Dunsborough That Aren't a Winery

People assume Dunsborough is a wine town. It isn't, really. The wineries are inland, scattered between here and Margaret River. Dunsborough itself is a beach town with a main street, and the best things to do here have nothing to do with a tasting flight.

I live fifteen minutes south of it, on Blythe Rd in Yallingup. I drive into Dunsborough most weeks. I know what holds up and what doesn't. So here is what I actually send visitors to when they ask me, wine off the table. The full things to do in Dunsborough is the pillar version of this list with the cellar doors back in.

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

Dunsborough sits on Geographe Bay. The water there is flat, properly flat, like a lake, because the bay faces north and the swell that hammers Yallingup just doesn't reach. That means you can swim in October. You can swim in May. The temperature is the warmest stretch of coast in the South West.

Start at the foreshore park, walk east along the sand, look back at the town. The whole place reads differently from the water side. That's the first thing. Twenty minutes, no cost, sets the day up.

Drive ten minutes east of town toward Eagle Bay and you'll find Meelup. This is where I take every visitor who's never been to this coast before. The beach is small, the granite headlands are the colour of weak tea in the afternoon light, and the water is the same flat turquoise as the town beach but emptier.

The car park fills up by 10am in summer. In autumn you can have it almost to yourself. Bring a towel, a thermos, a book. Don't try to do anything. Just sit on the sand and let the place do its work.

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

There's a walking track that runs from Meelup along the coast: Point Picquet, Castle Rock, on toward Eagle Bay. About four kilometres one way if you go the whole distance. The track stays close to the water the whole time. You'll see whales between September and December if the timing is right whale watching from Cape Naturaliste.

From Dunsborough, the road out to Cape Naturaliste is fifteen minutes. The lighthouse sits at the very tip. You can do a guided tour if you want the history, or you can skip the tour and walk straight to the lookout. That's what most people do, and the views are the same either way the full take on the lighthouse.

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

Walk past the lighthouse and follow the path to the Cape to Cape Track. You don't have to do the whole 135km. Walk for twenty minutes, find a rock to sit on, look at the Indian Ocean. That's enough. The cliffs here are different to the southern end of the Cape: lower, more limestone, more pink in the rock.

The Sugarloaf lookout is part of the same drive. Don't miss it on the way back. Park, walk a hundred metres, look out at the offshore stack. The sunset from that point in autumn is something I never get tired of.

For a long lunch that isn't wine, Eagle Bay Brewing Co is twenty minutes out of town and a properly good operation. Family-run, paddock-to-glass beer, food that takes the place seriously. The lawn is set up for kids. The view across to the vines is honest farm country.

I'm not a heavy drinker. I order one beer with lunch and then a coffee. The food is the reason to go: wood-fired pizza, slow-cooked lamb, a Sunday roast in winter that they do properly. Book if it's a holiday weekend. Walk in any other time a day built around Eagle Bay.

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

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. Ask her a question and you'll leave with something good.

There's a butcher who makes his own sausages. There's a baker who pulls sourdough out of the oven at 7am. There's a coffee shop run by a couple who used to work in Perth restaurants and decided to slow down. None of them advertise. You just have to walk in.

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. I bought one back to the workshop and used the timber in three different commissions.

Geographe Bay is the best snorkelling spot on this stretch of coast. The HMAS Swan is sunk just offshore as a dive wreck. That's a boat charter trip, not a walk-in. But from the shore at Castle Bay or Meelup, on a calm day, you can put a mask on and 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. Look back at the coast. It's a different perspective on a town you've walked through.

September to December, the humpbacks come into Geographe Bay to rest with their calves. You can see them from the foreshore some days: actual whales, blowing and breaching, while you eat a sandwich. From Castle Rock and the Meelup track, you'll see them clearer. From a charter boat out of Dunsborough harbour, you'll see them at twenty metres.

This is not a marketing claim. They come every year. I've seen them from my own workshop's eastern view some mornings, the spouts on the horizon, and that's twenty kilometres inland.

Driving home toward Yallingup or Margaret River? Take Caves Rd south and stop at Ngilgi. It's the closest cave to Dunsborough, about twenty minutes. Self-guided tour, not too long, good for kids and good for adults the Ngilgi Cave half-day.

The cave is older than the surrounding limestone country in feel: cold, quiet, properly underground. Come out of it and you'll be glad to see the sun. That contrast is half the point.

1. 9am

   Town beach

   Walk east along the foreshore, twenty minutes, coffee on the way back.
2. 10.30am

   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. 4.30pm

   Yallingup

   Drive south, stop at the gallery on Blythe Rd on the way home.

The gallery is on Blythe Rd in Yallingup, fifteen minutes south of Dunsborough on the way back toward Margaret River. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. We're open most days. Pamela will be there. I'll usually be in the workshop and you can watch through the viewing window.

Dunsborough rewards people who don't try too hard. Sit on a beach. Walk a track. Eat a long lunch. Look at the bay from a board. That's the place doing what it does best.