Perth/ Freemantle

This city is awesome!!  Very clean and very well laid out.  We are staying at a house near the center in a suburb called Attadale.  The house is owned by Glen's in laws.  They live south of Perth but have kept the house for convenience.  All I can say is you need a lot of money to live in Perth.  Plain Jane house costs around 800 to 900 grand.  Anything decent 1.5 mil +.  Anything really nice 4 to 5 mil.  Over the top sky is the limit.  A local real estate office had an empty building lot for $900,000!! We're talking a city sized lot!!

We spent the first day catching up with sleep and news and went to a local shopping mall.   I think Australia didn't get the word that the rest of the world is in recession...  The place was packed and people were spending money like there was no limit.  Obviously the economy here is alive and well!!  Lots of rich people due to the mining in Western Australia.  In some ways it is very much like western Canada with the work force going north to the mines and living in the southern part of the state with all kinds of toys.  

On the Sunday we went to King's park which is on the west side of the city center.  Beautiful park and hot.  We spent the day there and took lots of pictures.  This odd looking tree is called a Boab tree.  It fills with water and the aborigines use it as kind of a well in the Outback.  Hard to tell from the picture but its huge.

 This is Glen and I at Freemantle at the waterfront.  Freemantle is south of Perth but is more or less attached.  A shipping port it has a large dock area and the restored waterfront houses lots of shops and restaurants.  We ate there and walked around after dinner.  The area reminds me alot of Granville Island area in Vancouver.  One thing I have discovered here is that eating at a restaurant is expensive.  We went for a beer at a local pub and it was around $20 for 2.  Once again people around here must be loaded because they were pouring beer like it was coming out of a garden hose!!  No worries mate!!