Mullaloo Beach

Mullaloo is the northern suburbs at their gentlest and most welcoming, a soft golden beach below an unusually broad grassed foreshore shaded by trees, a little north of Hillarys. For a traveller who wants an easy, unhurried day by the sea, and for families in particular, it is one of the kindest choices on the Perth coast. The water is soft, the sand shelves slowly, and the deep band of lawn behind the beach gives everyone room to spread out, so even a warm weekend rarely feels crowded in the way the headline beaches do. Come at first light and the place is yours and a few early swimmers, the sea lying clear and still.

The early swim is the reward, and Mullaloo makes it a relaxed one. On a settled autumn or spring morning the water is soft and clear and easy underfoot, and because the beach is patrolled in season you can swim with the reassurance of the flags rather than reading an unwatched coast. Float out past the gentle break, turn back toward the green foreshore and the shade trees catching the early light, then carry a coffee to a patch of lawn or a bench. It is the sort of slow, restorative morning that resets a traveller, with the bonus that the grassed terrace makes it just as easy to linger for hours as it is to swim and go.

Now the honest part. Mullaloo is gentle, not glassy all day. This is still the open Indian Ocean, so while it is softer and kinder than Cottesloe or Scarborough it is not a flat lagoon, and from late morning through summer the afternoon sea breeze pushes in and roughens the surface just as the foreshore fills with families and barbecues. It is a wonderful place to spend a whole day, but if you arrive at noon in January hoping for a sheltered, mirror calm float, the breeze will have other ideas.

Who should come: families and anyone who wants a gentle, spacious, easy going swim with room to settle, taken early for the calmest water. Who should look elsewhere for the deepest calm: go south to the reef pool at Mettams Pool for a true float at any hour, to the reef softened water at North Beach, the calmest swim on this coast, or to the sheltered harbour beach at Hillarys just south.

Mullaloo sits about thirty minutes by road north of central Perth in the northern coastal suburbs, a little north of Hillarys, with parking along the foreshore. A bus service runs to the area, but a car is the simplest way to arrive at dawn before the foreshore fills on a warm day, and the generous parking and deep band of lawn mean it rarely turns into the slow circling hunt of the headline beaches.

Plan your swim for the early morning before the sea breeze arrives. Unlike most Perth beaches there is good natural shade under the foreshore trees, though it is still wise to bring your own cover for the open sand. Showers, toilets, the kiosk and the surf club sit behind the beach, with a playground and barbecues for a longer family stay and the hotel a short walk for a meal. Swim between the patrol flags, keep an eye on the conditions through the day, and remember the sea here is typical and never guaranteed.