Donnybrook
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Donnybrook

Donnybrook

Southwest Australian country town known for Preston River orchards and Donnybrook sandstone heritage.

Donnybrook is a small country town in the south-west of Western Australia, about 35 kilometres inland from Bunbury and 210 kilometres south of Perth. It is best known as the apple capital of WA — orchards line the Preston River valley, and the harvest from February through May draws backpackers looking for fruit-picking work.

There is a year-round farmgate trade in apples, pears, and stone fruit, and a couple of small cider makers worth seeking out. The town itself is quiet: a single main street with a few cafes, a heritage stretch of nineteenth-century buildings cut from the local sandstone (the same Donnybrook stone you see in many old Perth buildings), and the giant fibreglass apple that is required of any self-respecting Australian fruit town.

The other reason to stop is the Apple Fun Park in the centre of town — one of the largest free playgrounds in the southern hemisphere and a near-mandatory break for families on the long drive south. Beyond that, Donnybrook makes a workable, cheap base for the Margaret River wine country and the tall-tree forests further south.

Guide

Things to Do

A short list. The Apple Fun Park is the headline attraction; the rest is fruit, the heritage main street, and the orchards and forests around the town.

Guide

When to Go

The apple harvest runs from late February through May; this is when the town is at its liveliest, the orchards are open, and there is casual fruit-picking work for backpackers. Stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, plums) is earlier, from December into February. Cider releases tend to cluster around late autumn.

Winters here are cool and wet — the Preston Valley turns green and the orchards are bare. The town is quiet but the surrounding forests are at their best for walking, and the cellar doors stay open year-round.