Yallingup for Couples: A Romantic Weekend

Pam and I have been here for decades. The things that made it romantic when we arrived still work.

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

I'm not a romance writer. I make tables. But Pam runs the gallery and I run the workshop, and we've been doing this thing together since 1982, so I have some thoughts about what actually works down here when two people are trying to remember why they like each other. Most of it is very simple. The land does most of the heavy lifting. You just have to slow down enough to let it.

This is a weekend, two nights, from a Friday afternoon to a Sunday lunch. Adjust as you need.

Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd. First time driving down, do the last hour with the radio off. The country between Busselton and Yallingup deserves it.

You've got two honest answers, and they're different rooms in the same conversation.

Injidup Spa Retreat is the one most people are looking for when they ask me. Ten adults-only villas, each with its own plunge pool, a clifftop with no neighbours. It is not cheap. You're looking at $490 a night and up, depending on the season. But if the weekend is the present, this is the present. The villas are tucked into the bush so well you can stand on the deck in the morning and not see another building. Friends of ours go back for anniversaries. They don't go anywhere else.

Smiths Beach Resort is the other one. More relaxed, more options: apartments, villas, the lot. The beach is fifty metres from your front door. To spend your money on dinner and wine rather than on the room, this is the choice. The restaurant on site, Lamonts, is good enough that you don't have to leave the property for the whole weekend if you don't want to.

Wherever you're sleeping, the gallery is on Blythe Rd, twelve minutes from Injidup, eight from Smiths. Pamela curates the space — she's better at it than I am — and on a Saturday morning the light through the jarrah walls is one of the quieter pleasures of the weekend. People come in, browse, and leave with something. Sometimes it's a small bowl. Sometimes it's a table they'll have for the rest of their life. Either way, it's a thing the two of you chose together.

Resist the temptation to plan the first afternoon. You've driven from somewhere. The point of the first night is to stop driving.

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

Checked in by four, walk down to whichever beach is closest. At Injidup, it's the little track down to Injidup Beach. Granite, no sand at high tide, but the colour of the water is enough on its own. At Smiths, it's the beach itself. Take a bottle of something to the headland and watch the sun go.

Dinner the first night should be light. The drive's caught up with you. Yallingup Woodfired Bread at the Siding does wood-fired pizza and a pretty good glass of wine, and it's five minutes from anywhere you're staying. The Caves House dining room is the other call. It's been feeding visitors since 1903 and the bones of the place haven't been spoiled.

This is the one fixed thing in our week. The Margaret River Farmers Market on a Saturday morning. We've been going for years.

It's in town, behind the education campus, opens at eight and is done by noon. Get there by nine and you'll have the place to yourselves. Coffee from the Yahava van. Whatever fruit is in season. Bread from one of the bakers. Cheese from Margaret River Dairy. There's a flower stall that does buckets of natives. Pam takes a bunch home most weeks. It's not a tourist market dressed up. It's where we shop.

After the market, when the wind is down, drive back up to Smiths Beach. By ten the light is starting to do its thing on the reef.

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

Smiths is where I go. Small swell, swim. Wind's up, walk the headland north. There's a track that takes you up onto the dune, and from there you can see the whole bay. Bring the bag of bread and cheese from the market and have it on the sand. That's the morning.

A common mistake on a romantic weekend down here is trying to do five wineries in a day. By the fourth one you're tired and slightly cross with each other, which is the opposite of the point. Pick one. Stay for two hours.

For lunch, Vasse Felix is the one I keep coming back to. The kitchen is genuinely good, the room is calm, and the gallery upstairs (the Holmes à Court collection) is worth half an hour after lunch. Twenty minutes from either Injidup or Smiths.

If you want a degustation that's going to be the centrepiece of the whole trip, book lunch at Voyager Estate. It's about forty minutes south, properly grand, and they don't do anything by halves. If you go, do it on the Saturday and don't book anything else for the day. You won't want to.

For a smaller, quieter cellar door, drive to Clairault Streicker or Wills Domain, both five minutes from Yallingup proper. the Yallingup wineries guide for the longer list.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The best sunset within a short drive is Canal Rocks. It's ten minutes north of Smiths. The granite channels there hold the swell, and on a still evening the water does things with the light that I won't try to describe. Park at the top, walk down to the bridge, stay until it's properly dark. how to do Canal Rocks for the light

For dinner, you've got the options from the night before. If you want something fancier, drive into Dunsborough. Wills Domain does a tasting menu, or Yarri in town is the modern Australian option that's been winning awards. Book ahead. Yallingup itself doesn't have a lot of restaurants, and that's a feature, not a bug.

The mistake people make on a romantic weekend is trying to do everything. The other mistake is doing nothing. The trick is to pick three things and do them well.

Sleep in. This is the rule. Whatever you've come down here to do, you have done most of it by Sunday morning, and the rest of the day should feel like an exhale.

Coffee on the deck if you're at Injidup. Walk to the beach if you're at Smiths. By ten, if you've got it in you, do one short walk. The Cape to Cape between Smiths and Canal Rocks is an hour each way and shows you the coast properly. If your knees are done, do the short loop at Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse: half an hour, paved, and you'll see whales between September and December if you time it right.

This is also when most couples come into the gallery. Saturday is busy; Sunday late morning is quiet. If you're thinking about buying something — and you don't have to be — Sunday is the day. Take your time. Pam will make you a coffee. I'll be in the workshop through the viewing window if you want to ask about a piece.

A long lunch is the right way to end the weekend. You'll feel it on Monday, but you'll be glad you did.

The pub at Caves House does a good Sunday lunch in the beer garden. If the weather's right and the band's on, that's the call. Otherwise, Aravina Estate has a nice lunch room with views over the dam and is fifteen minutes back toward Busselton. Sets you up nicely for the drive home.

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

Don't fill the weekend. The best memories Pam and I have from forty years here are mostly things that took ten minutes: walking down to Smiths at low tide, sitting on the deck after a market run, the colour of the limestone walls in the gallery at four in the afternoon. The big things matter, but the small things are what you remember.

Come down, eat well, swim if it's warm enough, and let the country do what it does. That's all there is to it.