uncomplicated & unrefined: Geographe Bay

Smiths Beach - Yallingup

Last week I proposed to Shane that we get out of town and go camping over the weekend - a rather appropriate time for proposals since it was also our one year wedding anniversary. There are few spaces between Perth and Cape Leeuwin - the SW corner of Australia - that I have yet to discover but Geographe Bay was one of them.

Geographe Bay is a popular tourist destination for West Australians, conveniently located 2.5 hours south of Perth. This area is known for its beautiful sheltered beaches and is also the northern gateway to the Margaret River Wine Region. Although the bay technically starts further north, the Geographe Bay region begins with the coastal town of Busselton. From there the coastline changes direction, giving the bay a northerly aspect. Twenty-five kilometers to the west along the coast is the very small yet modern and trendy tourist town of Dunsborough. Just beyond Dunsborough the bay culminates at Cape Naturaliste which protects the calm shallow beaches of Geographe Bay. The area between Cape Naturaliste in the north and Cape Leeuwin in the south is the Margaret River Wine Region and when looking at a map, it resembles a hammer head sticking out into the Indian Ocean.

We spent our time exploring Cape Naturaliste’s surrounding coastline and the towns of Busselton and Dunsborough which together, along with the surrounding area, has a population of 26,000. In its early days, Busselton was a port city for the local timber industry. At 1.8 kilometers long, the Busselton Jetty is the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere. Its astounding length compensates for the shallow waters of the bay and those that walk the 1.1 miles to the end can visit the observatory 8 meters below the surface of the water.

On the other side of the cape is Yallingup – hardly a town but home to some beautiful beach houses situated in the coast’s gentle hills. It’s in this area that Shane tried his hand at gathering up the Abalone that make their home along the rocky coastline. Abalone are large sea snails easily caught by pulling them from the rocks of coastal rock pools. Unfortunately, the only ones he found were too small to meet the strict size requirements for collecting so we left without any dinner. Our friend Andrew was also in the area last weekend so he and Shane walked through the bush, down the sloping coastline to collect “Abs”, while I waited from above with Bronson.