Getting here
Two hours from Perth on the Forrest Highway. The Australind train runs from Perth twice daily and takes about two and a half hours to Bunbury station.
Two hours south of Perth
Bunbury
A working port city on a peninsula, with an inlet on one side, a bay at the top and the Indian Ocean on the other. Which is the whole reason this race exists.
Bunbury is not a resort town that happens to host a race. It is a port, and the course runs through the working parts of it.
You will run past a lighthouse checkered black and white on the top of Marlston Hill, a wildlife sanctuary a kilometre from the CBD, and a bay with a resident pod of wild dolphins that people swim with in the morning. And the town behind all of it is still, mostly, independent. It is two hours down the highway from Perth, and ninety minutes further to Margaret River, which is why a lot of people make it a long weekend.
Where to stay
Book early — race weekend fills the city. Marlston Hill and the CBD put you within walking distance of the start; Back Beach is quieter and a short drive. Visit Bunbury Geographe lists what’s in town.
Race morning parking
Ocean Drive closes from 5:00am. Park in the CBD and walk ten minutes, or stay close enough to walk from bed.
Bring the family
Dolphin Discovery Centre, the Mangrove Boardwalk, Back Beach and the lighthouse are all on or beside the course. All of it is walkable while you race.
If you're making a weekend of it
Worth the extra day
The Dolphin Discovery Centre
On Koombana Bay, on the course. Wild bottlenose dolphins visit the beach most mornings. Interaction zone, research centre, and a very good place to be on the Saturday.
Eat where the locals do
The cafés, bakeries, bars and shops around the CBD and Victoria Street are mostly owned and run by the people standing behind the counter. That independence is what gives Bunbury its character — a small city with a soul of its own rather than a strip of the same franchises you drove past on the way down. Have breakfast somewhere that is nobody else’s.
Margaret River
Ninety minutes south. If you have driven two hours from Perth to run a marathon, you may as well drive ninety more and drink something afterwards.