The Quieter Side of Margaret River: Places Most Visitors Walk Past

This guide covers the lesser-visited corners — places that are not difficult to reach and do not require specialist equipment, but that reward a bit of deliberate attention rather than waiting to be stumbled upon. Most are free. A note before we start: this is a coastal landscape shaped by the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean, and several of these spots involve exposed headlands, rock platforms and tidal conditions. Treat them with the care they deserve, take your rubbish out, and leave the geology exactly as you found it.

Most visitors to Margaret River drive Caves Road as a corridor to reach cellar doors and caves. The detour they miss is Boranup Drive — an 11-kilometre unsealed loop off Caves Road, south of Lake Cave, that passes through a dense grove of regenerating karri trees reaching up to 60 metres. The drive takes about 20 minutes and is rated suitable for two-wheel-drive vehicles on its hard limestone base, though corrugations and potholes mean a slow speed is sensible. What you get in return is forest that closes over the road, dappled light regardless of the weather, and a complete quiet that the main road does not offer.

The Boranup Lookout partway along the drive has picnic facilities and views across the forest canopy to Hamelin Bay's turquoise water — one of the better free viewpoints in the South West. In spring, the forest understorey is thick with white clematis, purple hovea, yellow hibbertia and coral creeper. Early morning or late afternoon on a weekday, the drive is effectively private — most people do it as a quick loop while heading south, which is exactly right.

About ten minutes south of Yallingup along Caves Road, at the end of Wyadup Road, a natural rock formation creates a sheltered pool at the ocean's edge where incoming waves push water over surrounding rocks and generate a bubbling, spa-like effect. When the conditions align — mid to high tide, moderate swell — the pool fills with warm, surging water and is unlike any beach experience in the region. The formation sits in a shallow bowl of ochre-coloured limestone, and on a windless morning with low sun it is deeply photogenic.

The timing is the whole challenge. At low tide the pool barely fills, and in very large swell the surrounding rocks are dangerous. The ideal visit is a moderate swell day at mid-to-high tide, ideally not a weekend in summer when the car park fills quickly. Check the tide times and a surf forecast the evening before, and aim for mid-morning on a day with one-to-two-metre swell and a rising tide.

Canal Rocks gets a reasonable number of visitors but most arrive, walk to the obvious viewpoint, photograph the channel and leave in 20 minutes. What the short-stay visitors miss is the return walk south along the Cape to Cape Track from the Canal Rocks car park to Wyadup Cliffs — about two kilometres, with views along the exposed coast that the main boardwalk does not offer. The extended walk takes around an hour return and passes sections of the coastline that are entirely without other visitors on most days outside midsummer.

The boardwalk itself is genuinely striking: the Indian Ocean has carved a network of channels and crevasses through the granite headland, and the raised timber walkway lets you look directly down into the surging water below. Free to visit, no entry fee, open at all hours — arrive at sunrise for the best light on the rock formations and the quietest car park.

Quinninup Falls are located in Wilyabrup, about 30 kilometres north of Margaret River, accessed via a car park at the end of Moses Road off Caves Road. The walk to the falls follows a section of the Cape to Cape Track and covers about four kilometres return, with a moderate level of fitness required — the route crosses uneven rocky surfaces, soft sand and a steep sand dune section on the return that demands more effort than the distance suggests. Allow 90 minutes to two hours. The falls are best between late winter and late spring (June to November) when the water flow is at its strongest.

The falls run over a coastal headland into the ocean, which makes them unusual — a waterfall that meets the sea rather than a river — and the setting in Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park has minimal built infrastructure. The name comes from the Wadandi word meaning 'place of the zamia palm', and the site holds cultural significance to the Wadandi people. Do not climb to the top of the falls, and treat the site with respect.

Ellensbrook at Mokidup — about eight kilometres northwest of Margaret River town — is Western Australia's oldest homestead still standing in its original location. Built in 1857 for settlers Alfred and Ellen Bussell, the site sits in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park in a protected coastal valley and is managed by the National Trust WA. The homestead is open Thursday to Saturday, 10am–4pm, with Sunday guided tours at 10:30am from the grounds, which are open daily. The building itself is modest and well-preserved, and the guides provide genuine historical context about the Bussell family's relationship with the Wadandi people of the area.

The 30-minute return walk to Meekadarabee Falls from the homestead follows part of the Cape to Cape Track through thick coastal bush and arrives at a grotto with trickling rapids and fern-draped limestone walls. Meekadarabee — meaning 'bathing place of the moon' — is significant to Wadandi women. The track is paved for wheelchair access. The falls are best between June and November when the water is flowing; in summer they can reduce significantly.

Most visitors arrive at Hamelin Bay for the stingrays and leave without looking south along the beach at the pattern of timber piles that break the water surface. These are the remains of a jetty built in 1881 to export karri timber from the surrounding forests — at its peak, stretching some 550 metres into the bay and connecting by a narrow-gauge railway to the mills at Karridale. The timber industry closed in 1913, the jetty fell into disuse, and what you see today is an irregular grid of weathered piles emerging from the sand and shallow water.

There is no formal heritage interpretation at the site — just the piles and the knowledge that they mark where one of WA's short-lived timber-export ports once operated. Walking south along the beach at low tide brings you among them, and the contrast between the deep turquoise water, white sand and the dark, barnacled timber posts makes it one of the more photographically interesting stretches of coast in the South West. Combine it naturally with the stingray visit rather than making a separate trip.

Boranup Gallery sits on Caves Road in the heart of the Boranup Forest, 20 minutes south of Margaret River town. The building itself — constructed from rammed earth and local timbers by the Howieson family — is part of the experience: it looks grown from the surrounding landscape rather than placed on top of it. Inside, the gallery's collection runs to handcrafted furniture made from Western Australian hardwoods (jarrah, marri, karri, blackbutt and sheoak), alongside paintings, glass, jewellery, wood and metal sculpture from regional and national artists.

The furniture in particular reflects a calibre of craft that is increasingly rare — pieces made from rare West Australian timbers using traditional joinery, built to last generations. It is not the kind of gallery you browse in five minutes; people who love material and making tend to linger for 30 to 45. Entry is free. The gallery is accessible by Caves Road only, making it a natural stop in either direction on a Caves Road day, and sits immediately adjacent to the turnoff for the Boranup Forest Drive loop.