Yallingup Beach: The Local's Guide

Surfing has been part of my creative process since before I could articulate what a creative process was. Yallingup Beach is where most of that happened.

I was twenty-something when I first started coming down here regularly. I'm in my sixties now and I still walk down most mornings before the gallery opens. The light over the reef at five-thirty in the summer is something a piece of timber can only aspire to. The light at first frost in June, when there's nobody about and the swell is thundering against Rabbit Hill, is something else again. Both are mine, in the way a place becomes yours when you've put a lifetime into it.

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

Heard of Yallingup, you've heard of the main break. It funnels off the reef about a hundred metres out and breaks both ways (a left and a right) and on a clean three-foot southwest swell with light easterly winds, there are not many waves in the world I'd rather be on. It's a reef break. That matters. You don't get the forgiving sand bottom you get further down the coast. Never surfed a reef before, this isn't the day to learn.

The break is sheltered enough that it works in a lot of conditions, which is why it's been a competition venue for decades. The Western Australia Margaret River Pro has been won and lost here. But "works in a lot of conditions" doesn't mean "works for everyone in all conditions". It's an intermediate break. Beginners want to be at the inside, where the swell rolls in across the sand off the back of the bay, or up the coast at Smiths.

The first thing to learn about Yallingup is that the locals know it. Respectful, you'll be welcome. Drop in on someone, you won't.

For non-surfers (most of the people who walk into my gallery) none of this matters. What matters is that the headland above the beach is one of the better short walks in this part of the world. Twenty minutes up to the top, half an hour back down via the rocks if the tide's out, and the views start somewhere south of Sugarloaf and run all the way past Cape Naturaliste. The Cape to Cape track passes right through here. You can step onto it from the car park.

Sunrise. I'm not going to dress this up. The car park starts filling around eight, and by ten on a good day there's nowhere to leave the ute. Come down at six, you'll find me, four or five other surfers, two photographers, and a dog. By seven there are coffee people. By ten the beach belongs to summer.

In winter that whole equation changes. June through August you can rock up at midday and have the headland walk to yourself. The swell is bigger, the light is lower, and the rain comes in horizontally from the south-west. That's my favourite version of this place. Bring a jacket.

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

The main car park is right at the beach. Turn off Caves Rd onto Yallingup Beach Rd and follow it down. There's a second car park further up the hill (locals call it "the top car park") which gives you the headland view and a different walk down. In summer school holidays both fill by mid-morning. In winter you can park anywhere.

A few practical notes I tell every visitor:

• There are public toilets and an outdoor shower at the main car park.
• The Yallingup Beach Hotel is a two-minute walk back up the hill. Coffee, lunch, cold beer if you've earned it.
• Mobile coverage is patchy on the beach. Don't rely on it.
• The reef is real reef. Watch where you put your feet at low tide. The snorkelling at the Aquarium and the calm lagoon at the north end sit on either side of the same reef.

For surf conditions on the day, I'd check Surfline or the Bureau of Meteorology swell map before driving down. For beach safety Western Australia more broadly, Surf Life Saving WA is the source. Yallingup isn't a patrolled beach, so know what you're doing or stay close in.

Most people who come down for a swim or a walk are then looking for the rest of the morning. Here's what I'd do.

Drive south five minutes to my deeper take on Smiths. Smiths is my favourite beach in the region. The swimming is easier, the walk south toward Injidup is one of the great short coastal walks, and the cafe at Smiths Beach Resort does a decent breakfast. With more time, walk all the way through to Injidup: about an hour each way, or five kilometres of granite headlands and Indian Ocean.

Down for the surf and looking for what else is breaking, the rest of the the beach-by-beach list is worth knowing. For a surf trip rather than a beach day, planning a surf trip here is the longer version.

The gallery is a seven-minute drive from the beach car park. Up Yallingup Beach Rd, right onto Caves Rd, then a quick run down Blythe Rd. Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd — stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. Come in salt-aired. The workshop will be going. We're open seven days, ten to five, and when the workshop door is open you can watch.

I'll tell you the thing I've never quite been able to say properly. You spend long enough sitting on a board out the back at Yallingup, watching the swell come in from the south-west, and you start to notice things. The way a wave gathers. The way it telegraphs what it's going to do thirty seconds before it does it. The way the same swell hits the reef differently on a Tuesday and a Thursday.

That's the same thing I do with timber. I look at a slab of jarrah and I read it the way I read a wave. The grain tells me what the tree was doing for two hundred years. The wave tells me what the ocean is doing for the next thirty seconds. They're the same skill. Patience and reading.

I didn't plan it that way. It just turned out that the place that gave me a life as a furniture maker also taught me how to make furniture. Yallingup is not a backdrop to my work. It's most of the reason the work exists.

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

For the broader picture on Yallingup beach Western Australia and how the region sits, the tourism site has good general info. But for the actual experience of being here: get up early, walk down to the beach, and let the place tell you the rest.