Cottesloe Beach

Cottesloe Beach sits on the Indian Ocean coast about 20 minutes drive west of the Perth CBD and is the city's most famous and most photographed beach. The beach is a wide 1.6 kilometre arc of white sand backed by the grassy Marine Parade reserve and the heritage Indiana Tea House, a neoclassical building originally built as a tea room in 1910 and now a restaurant and the focal point of the main beach area.

The main beach is patrolled year-round by Surf Life Saving WA and is genuinely family-friendly, with relatively small surf compared to many west coast beaches thanks to the shelter of Rottnest Island, 18 kilometres offshore. The Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club has been continuously operating since 1909 and is one of the oldest in Western Australia.

The Norfolk Pine trees that line Marine Parade were planted in the early 1900s and give the beach its distinctive skyline profile. Sunset at Cottesloe is the classic Perth experience: locals walk, jog or cycle along the Marine Parade, eat fish and chips at the Indiana Tea House or the Cottesloe Beach Hotel, and watch the sun drop into the Indian Ocean. The westerly aspect means every clear day delivers a dramatic sunset.

Sculpture by the Sea, held at Cottesloe each March, is the largest outdoor sculpture exhibition in Australia and one of the largest in the world. Around 70 sculptures are placed across the beach and the surrounding parkland for three weeks, and the event draws around 250,000 visitors. The same sculptures then travel to a sister exhibition at Bondi Beach in Sydney each October.

Cottesloe is reached by the Perth train network (Cottesloe Station on the Fremantle Line) or by car with free parking along Marine Parade. It is one of the easiest Perth experiences for visitors without a car.