A clean, beautiful, sunny paradise, my former city of Perth is home to 1.2 million incredibly lucky souls. This view is from the parklands of the South Perth foreshore, taken across the Swan River, named after the black swans seen there by early explorers.
Rising over the city to the west are the parklands, natural bushlands and botanic gardens of Kings Park. I used to jog around it every dawn and see the sun turn the river to liquid silver after rising over the eastern hills.
Perth has about the best beaches of any capital city in the world. Unlike some Northern hemisphere so-called ‘beaches’ I’ve seen, our sand is white, and sometimes so clean that it squeaks under your feet. I lived here twice, and used to run along the beach and cycle path above, for miles. A favorite treat is to get takeout from the art-deco café above the beach (they have great vego stuff), sit on the green grassy terraces, and watch the sun sink into the Indian Ocean. In the 1980s Mt St Helens blew dust into the stratosphere around the world, and we had the most unbelievable deep orange sunsets for about 6 months.
When you tire of our beaches, Rottnest Is. Awaits you. 30 mins off the coast by fast ferry, this snorkeling and diving paradise has reefs littered with shipwrecks. It’s inhabited by few people but many quokkas (small, slow-moving, friendly kangaroo-like creatures). Cars are banned but you can hire a bike, or the bus stops at all major beaches every 30 mins. Many of them look like this. Rottnest is 18 km long and narrow and mostly unsettled and unspoiled.
When you tire of Rottnest, the south-west awaits you. 3 hours south of Perth, the four major attractions of this corner of Australia are stunning old growth forests, boasting karri, jarrah and marri trees second only to the Californian redwoods in height, hundreds of caves, stunning coast, craft galleries and wineries. I’m proud to say that we kicked the conservatives out of power in the last election and stopped the logging, winning a 10-year struggle to save the remaining trees. However, my biggest love has been the caves (I’m a caver) and the coast. You can get lost in the beauty of the south-west for a week or a lifetime.
Right is the Indian Ocean. Left the Denmark River, meandering about 10km to the country town of Denmark. Behind - a surf beach and caravan park. And in front – the wilderness of the great south-west, unbroken for about 100 miles.
One day’s drive (800 km) North of Perth on the edge of the desert is Monkey Mia, one of very few places in the world where wild dolphins freely come to mingle with wading tourists. Around the corner (say, 50km) is Shell Beach – about 10 m deep and 100 km long, comprised entirely of tiny white shells … further North the bastards mine them for limestone, but here where the tourists come they’re relatively untouched.
Decimated by environmental destruction, stress and Chlamydia, koalas are very rare. I’ve only ever seen one in the wild, high up a gum tree on the Sunshine Coast (Eastern Australia). The rozellas are common, at least in the snowy mountains. Kangaroos are as common as deer in some Northern countries – they’re everywhere. But the frill-necked lizard dwells only in the deep desert – I’ve never seen one.
