8 Most Walkable Town Centers In Western Australia

The best town centres in Western Australia are full of heritage streets, free museums, river loops, and beaches you can reach without getting back in the car. In Broome, 13 red Yawuru signs mark a 2.5 km walking route between Chinatown and Town Beach, and the Sun Pictures cinema on Carnarvon Street has shown films since 1916. Three signposted walks leave York's 1911 Town Hall, the shortest of them 1.5 km along Avon Terrace, and the Swinging Bridge crosses the Avon a block off the main street. In Denmark, the Mokare Heritage Trail makes a 3 km loop along both banks of the river out of Berridge Park, a block below the Strickland Street shops. Across Western Australia, a wander through town can take all day.

Broome

Broome's Chinatown sits between Carnarvon Street and Dampier Terrace. The Jetty to Jetty Trail leaves it for Town Beach, 2.5 km marked by 13 red signs that Yawuru put up to tell the story of each place along the way. The first of those signs stands at Streeter's Jetty on Dampier Terrace, a timber walkway into the mangroves of Dampier Creek, where a cut channel once brought pearling luggers up to Chinatown.

Sun Pictures on Carnarvon Street has shown films since 1916 and is recognized by Guinness as the oldest open-air cinema still operating, with deck chairs out under the stars. Pearl Luggers on Dampier Terrace takes visitors through two restored boats and the hard-hat diving gear the crews used to go down in. The tour finishes with a tasting of pearl meat. If you time it right over two or three nights a month from March to October, a rising full moon reflects off the exposed mudflats at Town Beach in a ladder of light known as the Staircase to the Moon.

Rottnest Island

Thomson Bay Settlement is a minute's walk off the ferry jetty, and visitors cannot drive on Wadjemup at all. Permits go to workers and researchers, so the settlement operates on foot, by bike, and aboard the island bus. The Wadjemup Museum fills the old mill and hay store behind the bakery with 17 exhibits and a sculpture garden, taking in the island's shipwrecks, its salt lakes, and its wildlife alongside the harder history of the settlement. The Rottnest Volunteer Guides lead free walks out of the Salt Store, 45 minutes on the settlement buildings or the waterfront wrecks, with no booking needed. The Basin is a 12-minute walk from the settlement and Pinky Beach 10, with the Bathurst Lighthouse standing over the sand since 1900. The Wadjemup Bidi links 45 km of walking track around the island in five sections, all of them reachable from the settlement. Quokkas forage through the streets, and Garden Lake is just eight minutes away on foot.

York

York is the oldest inland town in the state, and Avon Terrace is its main street. Three signposted walks leave the Town Hall, the shortest of them 1.5 km past the old pharmacy, the newspaper office, and the hotels. The Town Hall was built in 1911, with columns and fanlights, and the visitor centre is located in its foyer. The Residency Museum on Brook Street is the last building left from York's convict depot, and the last surviving Depot Superintendent's Quarters in Western Australia. Its rooms trace Ballardong Noongar history, the convicts detained here, and the Chinese and Albanian market gardeners who came after them. The York Motor Museum on Avon Terrace fills three galleries with more than 50 cars and 15 motorbikes, among them an 1898 Benz that the WA Museum calls the oldest car in the state. A block off the main street, the Swinging Bridge crosses the Avon into Avon Park. The 3.4 km river walk follows the bank from there.

Dunsborough

Naturaliste Terrace and Dunn Bay Road meet at the roundabout in the middle of Dunsborough, with the water one block north on Geographe Bay Road. Dunsborough Bay is protected by sand banks close to shore, so the swimming is calm, and from September to December, humpbacks pass close enough to watch from the sand. Lions Park sits on the foreshore between the shops and the beach, and the Lions Club stages its market there on the fourth Saturday from September to April, with about 65 stalls of produce, plants, and craft. The 31 km shared path from Busselton ends in town, which makes the whole of Geographe Bay walkable from the main street. Meelup Regional Park is 3.7 km out along the coast track, past granite headlands and coves at Curtis Bay, Castle Rock, and Point Picquet.

Margaret River

Margaret River's Bussell Highway was rebuilt for walking, with wider pavements, shade trees, and awnings over the shopfronts. The Main Street Historic Walk marks 67 sites along it with QR plaques. Scanning one tells you what the building was before it was a shop, from the hotel to the old butter factory. The Old Settlement on the riverbank has the relocated Bramley School, a Group Settlement house, a blacksmith's workshop, and a dairy, reached via a footbridge from Rotary Park. The park is also the trailhead for the Bunnitj Biddi, which extends 7.3 km up to Ten Mile Brook Dam inside Wooditjup National Park. Settlers Tavern on Bussell Highway has been the town's live music room since 1977 and boasts a list of more than 600 wines.

Bridgetown

Bridgetown's shops line the length of Hampton Street, in buildings that mostly went up a century or more ago. The Bridgetown Heritage Trail threads 2.4 km through the town, past the churches, the Town Hall, and the old National Bank, and down to the bridge over the Blackwood. The Police Station and Orcharding Museum on Hampton Street is the 1880 station and lockup, with graffiti still on the cell walls and displays on policing and the orchards. The Visitor Centre moved into the restored railway station and operates two galleries, the Station Master's and the Goorbilyup. From Blackwood River Park below town, the river walk measures 6 km return on a flat sealed surface rated for wheelchairs and prams, and Blues at Bridgetown takes over the main street every November with live music and family-friendly festivities.

Denmark

Denmark's shops sit on Strickland Street, a block up from the river. The Mokare Heritage Trail makes a 3 km loop along both banks from Berridge Park. The trail crosses the river on the 1929 railway bridge, its tracks lifted and replaced with concrete and handrails. Denmark ArtsHouse on Strickland Street books live music, theatre, film, and workshops throughout the year and shows work in the Andre Steyl Gallery. The Denmark Historical Museum on Mitchell Street occupies the 1923 police station and its lockup, which were saved from demolition and have been in the care of the historical society since 1989. From the visitor centre at the top of town, the Ocean Beach cycleway continues 8.5 km to the surf club. The Munda Biddi passes that same visitor centre, where Ocean Beach Road meets South Coast Highway, and the Bibbulmun joins the path along the way.

Albany

Albany's York Street descends straight from the Town Hall to Princess Royal Harbour, which the city calls the link between town and water. Stirling Terrace runs along the bottom of it, a Victorian precinct on the State Register, home to the old post office, the London Hotel, the courthouse, and the Royal George. The Town Hall of 1888 houses galleries on the ground floor and an auditorium above, with exhibitions continuing through the bicentenary year.

Down on the foreshore, the Museum of the Great Southern is free to enter, and a small fee buys a tour below decks of its full-size replica of the brig Amity, the ship that brought the 1826 party that founded the town. Up the hill, the National Anzac Centre is a climb of about 1.5 km on the Forts Link trail. Down at sea level, the Ellen Cove path follows the water 2.5 km from Middleton Beach back toward the port.

These town centres are full of places worth stopping. A mangrove jetty at the top of the state, a river loop in the south, a settlement where almost nobody is allowed to drive. Whether the day calls for a museum, a swim, or a long lunch on a heritage street, every one of them is possible to experience on foot. These are eight of the most walkable town centres in Western Australia, and every one of them is worth the trip.