Retreats, nature & experiences in Western Suburbs

A long-standing Wembley day spa built around multi-hour 'spa journey' packages — massage, facials, body therapies and healing treatments using organic Sodashi and Li'tya products, with sauna and light-therapy rooms on site. A team of around forty therapists runs six days a week, with late Thursday evenings. Pregnancy-safe rituals and men's treatments sit alongside the classic day-escape packages.

Over 15km of bush trails and ten lookouts on the highest natural ground along this stretch of coast. The climb from the car park to the Reabold Hill platform is about 200 metres, unpaved in places, and turns to face the ocean at the top — which is the reason to time it for the last hour of light.

Groynes either side make a sheltered pocket of water, which is why it reads calmer than its neighbours on a breezy morning. Wide lawns, a surf club and a row of places to eat directly behind the sand.

Perth's best-known swimming beach, and the one most people mean when they say they went for a dip. Patrolled through summer, grassed terraces above the sand, and calmest early — the Fremantle Doctor gets up from the south-west most afternoons.

A flat sealed path north from the Cottesloe groyne with the water on your left the whole way, which is the point at sunset. About 3km one way to Swanbourne, and there is no hill on it.

An informal ocean swimming community that swims a 2km return from North Cottesloe to the Cottesloe groyne every day of the year, followed by coffee.

Frieda runs yin and vinyasa classes in Claremont and Cottesloe and takes the practice into the bush: yoga hikes — 'yikes' — such as a four-kilometre walk at Bells Rapids followed by a slow-flow class and afternoon tea, and a hike to the Golden View lookout above Mundaring Weir, forty-five minutes east of the city. Longer retreats run in Balingup and overseas. Private one-to-one classes and corporate yoga and pilates round out the calendar.

Outdoor group fitness, running clubs and personal training held at beaches and parks across the western suburbs — Leighton, City Beach, Swanbourne, Mosman Park, Peppermint Grove and Dalkeith — plus lunchtime sessions in the CBD and Fremantle. Equipment is brought to the session, so there is no gym to join.

Holly Dutton teaches yoga at City Beach and runs residential retreats in WA's south-west — most recently a four-day Margaret River weekend combining daily yoga, sauna and ice bath sessions, breathwork, meditation, bush walks and a cacao ceremony, fully catered. Shared and single rooms from $1,495. Private retreats for groups of six or more can be arranged at Rottnest, Yallingup, Ferguson Valley and the Swan Valley.