Margaret River is only a couple of hours drive south of Perth, which makes it a fantastic Western Australia family travel experience. Rated as one of Australia’s the best wine regions, Margaret River has a huge range of kids’ friendly things to do.
Enjoy farm stays, exploring caves, relaxing on beaches, tasting delicious local produces and of course dropping by Margaret River’s family friendly wineries.
Margaret River gets very busy during school holidays and long weekends. So be sure to plan ahead.
Here are the best things to do in Margaret River with kids:
Boranup Forest
20 minute drive from Margaret River, Boranup forest is a popular place for a scenic drive. This area is also well known for its wildflowers during spring. The drive down along Caves Road is lined with massive trees (especially south of Mammoth Cave) and is one of the most beautiful drive in Western Australia.
Make sure you stop by the forest view point to take in the amazing scenery. You may even choose to go hiking or camping in this area.
Explore Caves
The cave network hidden in Margaret River is pretty special. There are more than 150 underground caves in this region!
Some of the bigger caves can be visited via a guided tour. You may see bigger caves in Asia but in Margaret River you won’t have the excessive crowd and busy lighting which can often takeaway a cave’s natural beauty.
Two of our favourite caves are: Lake Cave and Ngilgi Cave.
Lake Cave is the deepest of the open caves. Down 350 steps, you will find a cave with beautiful stalagmites, stalactites, straws and columns. It is also famous for the ‘suspended table’ formation, which hovers above the glass like lake water.
Ngilgi Cave is located closer to Yallingup. This cave was Western Australia’s first ever tourist attraction! Kids will love crawling through the junior explorer’s tunnel. Along the way, lighting illuminates hidden information and remarkable variety of crystal formations.
Sunflowers Animal Farm
With over 350 farm animals to pat, feed and interact – kids will love this place!
Come at 10am or 4pm daily, to help bottle feed the baby animals. Buy a bucket of animal food to feed as you walk around this cattle farm.
You can also explore this huge 315 acres farm by booking a 90 minute tractor ride tour.
Enjoy yummy food (& wine of course!)
Family travel and lots of wine – what a great idea! You can’t go to Margaret River and not visit the wineries. So many of the Margaret River wineries have kid friendly facilities. From kids menus, to kids area in the tasting rooms, to large grassy lawns with garden games, and even playgrounds. Margaret River wine region is paradise for wine loving parents and kids.
Here are a few of our favourite spots:
Aravina Estate: the restaurant serves beautiful food. The country style shop sells beautiful home wares and car lovers will love the vintage car collection gallery (our son’s favourite!). There is even a large playground for kids to enjoy.
Cheeky Monkey Brewery & Restaurant: award winning restaurant plus great tasting beers, while kids roam free on the amazing playground! Also don’t miss their production facility.
Voyager Estate: probably the prettiest looking winery in Margaret River. Inspired by the original Cape Dutch farmsteads of South-Africa, this winery is famous for their premium wine and fine dining restaurant.
Swings and Roundabouts: For a more casual dining and yummy pizza, this is where you should go. Outside there is a kids playground and wide open space to play.
Enjoy local produce
Bettenay’s Nougat Margaret River: set amongst the vines, overlooking a lake – taste freshly made nougat and wines.
Berry Farm: Visit their shop to buy home made jams, condiments, sauces and port wines. Their café serves delicious morning and afternoon teas.
Cape Lavender: scones with culinary lavender served with delicious Devonshire teas. A perfect place for your afternoon treat.
Yallingup Woodfired Bread: Specialty wood fired bakery. Absolutely one of the best breads you’ll ever taste! Come here at 4pm when the fruit loaf comes out warm from the oven!
Margaret River chocolate company: yummy range of chocolate products, with Free tastings, as well as viewing windows to see the Chocolates being made.
Get ready to Rock
Margaret River region boasts wild, rugged coastline. Drop by these landmarks during your Margaret River stay.
Canal Rocks: Our favourite spot to visit – especially at sunset. A walkway allows easy access and great views of the rock formations. It does get windy especially in afternoons, so make sure you keep your little ones safe.
Sugar Loaf Rocks: Towering rock that emerges from ocean is one of the most photographed coastal rock in the region. The best place to view the rock and ocean is from the nearby lookout point.
Injidup natural spa: A large rock pool sheltered from waves by the rocks – close to Canal Rocks and just a few minutes’ drive from Yallingup. This small picture spot has been attracting excessive crowds and Instagrammers in recent times.
Relax on a beach
Hamelin Bay is our recommended family friendly beach. The water is shallow and this is the beach to get up close to stingrays. Walk a little further from the boat ramp and see beautiful coastal rock formations.
Our second favourite beach is Castle Rock bay beach in Dunsborough. Not far from the popular Meelup beach, your family can enjoy a short hike to see Castle Rock before enjoying a quiet swim at the beach. Waves on this beach are relatively gentle for little ones.
Some of the other best beaches in Margaret River for family travellers are: Granarabup beach, Yallingup beach or Meelup beach.
Getting to Margaret River
Pick up your hire car from Perth Airport or the city and drive south.
The distance from Perth to Margaret River is around 270km. It is a pretty easy drive and will take about 3 hours. We recommend breaking up the journey and stopping by the following places:
Gnomesville – Ferguson Valley: Home to many thousands of garden gnomes. You can bring your own gnome to add to the ever growing collection!
Busselton: Busselton is another popular South West family holiday destination and here you can find the 1.8km-long (world’s longest) wooden jetty. You can walk hop on a train to reach the end where you can go down into the Underwater Observatory.
On the foreshore dine at Shelter Brewing Co, afterwards the little ones will certainly love the Adventure Playspace featuring a sinking pirate ship, giant squid and whale playground.
Accommodation
Margaret River offers a range of family friendly accommodation, including caravan parks, campsites, hotels, resorts and chalets.
For something unique stay at: Margaret River Hideaway & Farmstay
Margaret River Hideaway and Farmstay is the perfect base from which you can explore Margaret River. There’s plenty to do on the farm; feed the animals, play in the cubby or jump on the trampoline, stroll around the farm or relax on your verandah.
You will meet many farm animals including Dorper sheep, alpacas, Scottish Highland cattle, geese, ducks, guinea fowl, emus, peacocks and chickens. Guests are invited to help feed them each Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
We had a memorable two nights stay at Margaret River Hideaway & Farmstay. We stayed at the modern Superior Studio (4B). This modern unit has two queen sized bedrooms, one bathroom and spacious living area with kitchen facilities. Outside we enjoyed a good sized alfresco which looks out to a central grassed area. Alpacas and kangaroo will regularly wonder around and pass your window. Unit 4B can be combined with 4A to provide accommodation for up to 8 (plus babies).
The property manager, Kim lives in the homestead (by the gate) so help will always be on hand. During our stay Kim really went above and beyond to make our stay an enjoyable one. Travelling with our two young boys, she regularly checked on us to make sure we are comfortable, have enough water, stay warm during cold nights, helping charge our mobile phones and put on animal feeding on Monday morning to give kids extra activities. Margaret River Hideaway is a unique property which will suit travelling families. We are now certainly farmstay converts and highly recommend Margaret River Hideaway & Farmstay.
For places we have visited, Checkout our website’s travel Destinations section. We buy of our travel essentials online via Ebay
