Scarborough Beach

Scarborough is the beach Perth chose to dress up, a wide white surf beach below an esplanade rebuilt into a strip of pools, bars, an amphitheatre and a skate park. It photographs as a glamorous beach destination, and on a warm evening with music drifting from the foreshore it has real energy. What it is not, for all the marketing, is a place to find stillness. This is the loudest, most social stretch of the Perth coast, and a traveller arriving here in search of calm has, gently, come to the wrong beach.

There is a brief window when Scarborough is peaceful, and it is the same one that rewards you everywhere on this coast. At first light, before the foreshore wakes and while the surfers are still reading the sets, the long white sand is quiet and the air is soft. Take a slow walk along the waterline then, or a careful swim if the sea is settled, and you can borrow a little of the serenity that the rest of the day spends. By mid morning that window has closed and the esplanade is in full swing.

The honest read is about the water as much as the crowd. Scarborough is an open, exposed surf beach, and it earns that name. It regularly carries surf and rips, and the afternoon sea breeze the locals call the Doctor blows in hard and turns the surface to chop just as the day heats up. For confident swimmers and surfers that is part of the appeal, but for anyone wanting a soft, sheltered float it is restless and tiring, and the flags are not a formality here.

Who should come: travellers who want a lively day, the pool, the bars and the surf, and who enjoy a beach with a pulse. Who should look elsewhere for calm: head north to the sheltered reef pool at Mettams Pool for a true gentle swim, to the easier family sand at City Beach a little south, or to the quieter iconic terrace at Cottesloe taken early.

Scarborough sits about twenty five minutes by road northwest of central Perth. There is no train to the beach itself, so most visitors drive or take a bus toward the foreshore, with large public car parks behind the esplanade that still fill on hot weekends. A taxi or ride app is simple from the city or the northern suburbs, and the redeveloped foreshore is easy to reach on foot once you arrive.

If calm is what you are after, plan to be on the sand at first light and leave before the sea breeze and the crowd build through the middle of the day. Bring or hire shade, because the wide sand offers little natural cover, and use the showers and facilities along the foreshore. On this exposed surf beach, swim only between the patrol flags, watch for rips and the strong afternoon wind, and read the sea each day, as conditions are typical and never guaranteed.