Conto campground booking: Conto and Boranup in summer

Conto Campground and Boranup Campground are the two best-known national park campgrounds near Margaret River. Both are in Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, and both are booked on Park Stay WA, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) booking system, up to 180 days before arrival. That rolling window means the 2026-27 summer school holiday nights at Conto and Boranup became bookable between late June and early August 2026. If you're looking in October, the Christmas and January nights have been on sale for months.

That doesn't mean you're out of luck. Park Stay WA has no waitlist, but people cancel, and the cancelled site goes straight back on sale. Across Park Stay WA, Schnerp saw 5,292 cancelled nights come back between 25 June and 22 September 2026. Most came back within two weeks of the arrival date, and most were taken again within an hour. This guide covers how Conto and Boranup bookings work, when each holiday night opened, and how to catch a cancellation.

How do you book Conto campground?

You book Conto Campground online through Park Stay WA, and only online. DBCA's Conto page says bookings are essential and can be made up to 180 days (about six months) before arrival, right up to the day you arrive. The same rules apply at Boranup, Jarrahdene and Point Road.

A booking is for one campsite, and the person booking has to camp on it. Friends travelling with you who can't fit on your site need their own booking. You pay the camping fee by Mastercard or Visa when you book. There's no booking fee, and Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park has no park entry fee, so the camping fee is the whole cost.

Conto is 19 km from Margaret River and 4 km from Conto Beach, on the Cape to Cape Track. It has 116 campsites across eight areas. Davies, Hamelin, Isaacs, Wanil and Whalers are tents and swags only. Chuditch and Quenda take rooftop tents, campervans, camper trailers and caravans. Check the area before you book.

How the park's four campgrounds compare

Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park has four bookable DBCA campgrounds, and Conto is by far the biggest. These are the fees and site counts on DBCA's campground pages in September 2026. Fees are per person, per night.

Boranup Campground sits on the edge of the Boranup karri forest. With only seven campsites, it's the hardest of the four to get on any busy weekend. All four campgrounds are unpowered, and none allows dogs or generators. Conto has no drinking water, so bring your own. Summer campers should also know that Conto doesn't allow campfires in the hotter months, typically mid-November to mid-April.

When did the 2026-27 summer holiday nights open?

The 2026-27 summer holiday nights at Conto and Boranup opened for booking between late June and early August 2026. Park Stay WA's window is 180 days, and it rolls forward one day at a time. WA public schools finish Term 4 on Thursday 17 December 2026 and start Term 1 on Monday 1 February 2027, according to the Department of Education. Counting back 180 days from each night gives these dates, give or take a day:

Term 1 2027 ends on Friday 9 April and Term 2 starts on Monday 26 April, so the April school holiday nights come into the window between 11 and 27 October 2026. If April is your target, work out 180 days before your arrival date and book on that day.

How cancellations work at Conto and Boranup

You can cancel a Park Stay WA booking under 'My bookings' up to 11.59pm AWST on the day before arrival. DBCA refunds what you paid, less any cancellation fee. The rules are in DBCA's online booking terms and conditions.

The cancellation fee is one concession camper fee per night removed. At Conto and Jarrahdene that's $15 a night. At Boranup and Point Road it's $10.

The fee doesn't apply if you cancel inside the grace period, which for most bookings is 48 hours after you book. It also doesn't apply if you cancel far enough ahead. For a peak-period night that means more than 14 days before the night. For any other night it means more than five days before.

Conto's page says stricter conditions apply in peak periods but doesn't list them. The Boranup and Point Road pages, in the same park, list Wednesday 23 December 2026 to Saturday 9 January 2027 as a peak period. By my count, the last fee-free day to cancel a Christmas Eve night is 9 December.

Two more rules matter in summer. The maximum stay in any WA park is 14 nights if any night falls in a WA public school holiday. And DBCA's booking FAQ says there's no waitlist when a campground is full. It suggests you keep checking, because cancellations may open up dates.

What Schnerp has seen on Park Stay WA

Schnerp scans Park Stay WA campgrounds for people waiting on cancellations. Between 25 June and 22 September 2026, it saw 5,292 cancelled nights come back across the Park Stay WA campgrounds it was watching. That's a statewide count, weighted towards the northern dry season at places like Karijini and Ningaloo, but it's the same booking system and the same cancellation rules.

The timing was late. 70% of those nights came back within 14 days of the arrival date, and 51% within seven days. They also went fast. Of the 4,733 that someone took before the arrival date, 58% were gone within an hour and 29% within five minutes.

Conto looks different away from the holidays. On 23 September 2026, Schnerp first checked a Thursday 18 to Sunday 21 March 2027 stay at Conto, two days after the last of those nights came into the window. All 79 tent-suitable sites it was watching were free for all three nights. More than 19 hours later, they were still free. For a March weekend six months out, the tent sites at Conto were wide open.

How to get a Conto or Boranup site for the summer holidays

Getting a Conto or Boranup site for the 2026-27 summer holidays now depends on cancellations, because those nights have been bookable since mid-2026. Here's what I'd do.

• Outside the holidays, just book. The March result above says Conto has room at the far end of the window. You don't need a strategy for a quiet weekend.
• For April 2027, book on the day. Your arrival night opens 180 days ahead, sometime between 11 and 27 October 2026.
• For Christmas and New Year, watch from late November. Peak nights are fee-free to cancel only until 15 days out, so I'd expect people who know they can't go to cancel before then. The fee after that is only $10 to $15 a night, and Schnerp's WA data says most nights come back inside the last fortnight anyway. So keep watching into the holidays.
• Watch more than one campground. Jarrahdene has 36 sites and costs the same as Conto. Boranup has only seven, so an alert on Boranup alone is a long shot. Point Road needs a 4WD. Hamelin Bay Holiday Park is privately run and booked separately.

Refreshing Park Stay WA by hand isn't a good use of a holiday. Set up a Conto availability request with your dates, and Schnerp will scan Park Stay WA and alert you when a site comes back. The same approach works for Dales in Karijini and Lucky Bay in the school holidays. For how WA compares with the other states, see our state-by-state guide to Australian camping bookings.