The WA Review
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Moses' tour Diary of the West of Oz
Perth is bigger than a Sydney suburb
Growing up in Sydney I had always imagined the worlds most remote city to be about the size of two football fields (one being Subiaco). I was quite shocked to find I couldn't walk across Perth in under 15 minutes, and downright appalled that no-one seemed to know my London mate "Pete from Perth". It turns out that Perth is freaking big, to me a comparable city for size and population would be Newcastle. It also sprawls for freaking ages, and we we're staying in Hamilton Hill, about 30 minutes drive south of Perth - actually closer to Freemantle (Freo).
According to the Wikipedia Perth has a population of around 1.5mil, is home to 75% of WA residents, and is the fastest growing city in Australia. While greater Perth is big, the CBD is what my girlfriend described as "cute". Looking this up in my English-to-Chick lexicon cute translates to "small but quaint". It's quite a pretty city, swan river is more like a lake and flows from Perth out to the coast at Freo. Looking on the map I noticed that Perth is a similar lattitude to Sydney, and as such had expected similar weather and flora.
Perth is bloody hot and dry.
This turned out to be completely wrong. Each day was 28C - 35C, clouds were scarse and judging by the dead grass all over the place rain even scarcer. Unlike Sydney there was little humidity, making the heat much more bareable. Another observation was that everything in Perth is substantially cheaper than Sydney. Example: To go for a ride in the jetboat from Freo Harbour is $25 per person. In Sydney they sting you $80 for the same priveledge. Standard beer is 10% cheaper and premium beer up to 30% cheaper. We were drinking Coopers Pale Ale for $45 per case - it's closer to $60 over east!
Perth's beaches are good for lying on, bad for swimming
I met up with my g/f's Zimbabwean friends to tour the city with them. As Zim is a landlocked country they'd never really been in the surf before but could swim. We checked out a few beaches in Perth and surrounds (Port Beach, Cottesloe Bay and one in South Freemantle). Bodysurfing conditions were pretty terrible each time we went, the bottom went from 1' to 5' deep in the first 3 metres, then stayed at 5" for another 30 metres out. This caused pretty violent shorebreakers and turbulent entry to the water followed by flat seas after that. Cottesloe was also polluted with pretentious beach art that only a plumber could love. Think 8" pieces of white pipe coming out of the grass and you're most of the way there. Add in a massive 8 ball floating out at sea and throw in an arrow that comes out of the sand and the landscape is complete.
Pubs good, Cabs bad
We had some great nights out in Perth, though I'm not able to divulge photo's from the Bucks nightOne thing that was pretty shocking was the taxi service. To get home from Freo we had to line up with about 200 people for over an hour at 2 in the morning for a taxi driver who had no clue where he was going. Again I was a victim of thinking Perth was smaller than it is cause we even though we went out every night not once did I see Damien Martyn picking fights out the front of night clubs
What the Quock
Rottnest Island was a highlight of the Perth trip, a short ferry ride from Freo. Quite a spectacular island though again very dry and in need of a good rain. We organised a snorkelling trip out to the reef which was awesome - got to see a truckload of fish and also saw the wrecks of two ships that sailed all the way from Glasgow to sink within 10km of Perth. Apparently one of the passengers swam to Perth from the wreck and ended up becoming the governer. Again we were pleasantly suprised with the prices - our snorkelling trip was $28 each which included hire gear, a boat trip out to the site and two staff along for the ride!
One of the Zimbo's is sh1tscared of snakes, and I have to admit I certainly wasn't helping by talking up the dangerous animals of Australia. Needless to say we went for a walk on Rottnest and she almost stood on a juvenile Dugite which is a member of the Brown snake family.
Margaret River: Surf, Wine and Sunsets
Next stop on the magical mystery tour was Margaret River. I was very impressed with this place, amazing sunsets and fantastic wine. The roads were a little frustrating however as the grey nomads in their vans were out in their numbers conserving fuel by driving 70km/h in 100 zones and swerving all over the lane as if they'd been enjoying the local product a bit too much.
We spent the night before the wedding at Wino's bar and drank ourselves silly on some superb Pinot Noir, a variety I hadn't tried before but now prefer it to Shiraz. The Force were playing this evening and I searched for a pub that were showing the local team taking on the might of the Hurricanes. Unfortunately there was a replay of an Arsenal soccer game on that was deemed of far more interest being shown by the two pubs in town so I returned to Wino's unable to follow the Force game. A shame too cause it sounded like a real cracker.
The next day we explored the area and found the beaches to be very impressive with a reef break about 500m out. I've heard it really pumps when a decent swell comes through, and even this day with a relatively small swell the waves were around 6'!
That's it for episode 1, if I get a chance I'll add to it later.
Cheers,
Moses.
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Originally Posted by Moses
Glad you had a good time - you were looking "happy" when I saw you last 
