Showing posts with label Perth Western Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Perth Western Australia. Show all posts

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Perth - Our Loveliest Capital City?

Perth Skyline
Perth Skyline
I wonder whether Perth could be classified as our loveliest capital city. It has much going for it including that it’s not yet over-populated like Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. You actually feel like you have space here and getting a parking spot is neither difficult nor expensive.

Apart from the peculiar “up” names, the suburbs look nice and clean and the rail and bus service is excellent. Perhaps due to the high presence of transport police and video cameras, the trains and buses lack the graffiti and signs of wilful destruction often found in other states.

Planning of Perth and surrounds has been done better than elsewhere with railway stations on raised platforms in the middle of dual carriage highways in and out of the city. You drive down the freeway, take a short diversion to a railway car park and then hop on a train. Buses often use the same facility, so you can bus to the station, hop off a bus and get straight onto a train.

I know this is the case in both Brisbane and Sydney (and possibly Melbourne), but here, it seems much better integrated and smoother.

We stayed at a very nice caravan park at Gwelup (is it pronounced well-up or we-lup - who knows?) not far from Joondalup and Karrinyup, both of which are lovely suburbs with nice roads, large shopping centres and mostly modern housing.

The median price for a house in Perth and suburbs is nearly $550,000 so one would expect to see some lovely houses. But, why aren’t we building simpler, cheaper houses for our young people to be able to get into the market?

Kings Park overlooks Perth and is a huge area of sanctuary for fauna and flora. Excellent views of the city centre are to be had from Kings Park, especially of an evening.

Our travels through WA suggest that Western Australians holiday in their state. Because South Australia, the Northern Territory and eastern and southern states are so far away, I expect that’s what keeps them here. Most of our companions wherever we stayed were from WA with a mixture of international visitors, usually in RVs and and assortment of motor vehicles carrying tents.

If you haven’t been to Perth and Western Australia, make sure you include it in your bucket list.

Robin