Lancelin
"The dunes look almost fake from a distance, like someone shipped in a small desert as a prop."
A fishing town wedged between the Indian Ocean and a field of white sand dunes tall enough to sandboard down at speed, an hour and a half north of Perth.
Lancelin is an hour and a half up the coast from Perth, a small fishing and crayfishing town that most people treat as a stopover on the way to the Pinnacles, which is a mistake, because the dunes just inland from town are worth a dedicated afternoon on their own. They rise abruptly out of the coastal scrub — brilliant white sand, some slopes steep enough to feel genuinely committing, stretching for several kilometres in a landscape that looks entirely out of place next to the ocean a few hundred metres away.
I rented a sandboard from a shop on the main street for a few dollars, no lesson, just a wax block and a point in the general direction of the biggest dune, and spent two hours going up and down a slope that was considerably harder to climb than to descend. The board picks up real speed on the steeper faces, and coming to a stop involves either skill I didn’t have or simply falling sideways into soft sand, which I did with some regularity and no lasting damage beyond a mouthful of it.
The dunes are also popular with 4WD tour groups who tackle the steeper faces at speed, engines straining, which is entertaining to watch from a safe distance while you catch your breath between sandboard runs. Beyond the dunes, the town’s economy runs on the western rock lobster fishery, and the harbour is genuinely busy with boats during the season — I bought a lobster straight off a boat for a fraction of what it would cost in a Perth restaurant and cooked it that evening on a borrowed barbecue at the caravan park.
The coastline itself, with Lancelin Island a short paddle offshore, offers excellent windsurfing and kitesurfing conditions thanks to consistent afternoon sea breezes, and the town hosts a windsurfing race each January that draws a small but committed international crowd.
When to go: Year-round for the dunes, though summer afternoons bring strong sea breezes that are great for windsurfing but can make sandboarding gritty. Crayfish season runs roughly November to June, the best window for buying fresh lobster off the boats.