Perth, Capital of WA is perhaps the lonelinest city on the planet. I don't mean that its people are cold and unfriendly, it public servants unhelpful, or its waiters rude and hostile (well not the first two anyway), in fact if those were the criteria, Perth wouldn't make my top 20, first place being a straight shoot out between London and Paris. But if we are talking about geographic rather than personal loneliness, Perth is unchallenged. The next major city, Adelaide, is well over 2200km away.
another cramped beach
Let me try and put some context on that figure for a cramped, narrow, my home is my castle overlooked by 23 others, British psyche. Imagine the city in question was London instead of Perth, how far would we need to go to be 2200km away? Remember Paris is a mere pop to the shops at 343 km, Hamburg, an evening out at 720. Barcelona? Nowehere near. Lisbon? A pitiful 1580km. Warsaw? Forget it. No, to get 2200km from London you have to leave mainland Europe altogether and go to the Canaries. Perth is seriously remote.
This sense of isolation does contribute to a couple of the key characteristics of the city. One of these is the sense of space, hardly surprising when there is some much land to expand into. Admittedly not all of the land around Perth is prime real estate, a lot is in fact decidedly inhospitable; but all the same, Perth does not suffer from the planning limitations, green belt concerns and the neccessity to pack 25m people (more than the total population of Australia) into a small space suffered by SE England. One of the results of this is that houses tend to be a similar size to their British counterparts but all on one floor, often with enough space around to fit in a swimming pool (and the weather to justify it).
Perth's isolation has another consequence, beyond a lack of stairs and a thriving pool maintenance industry. In many ways this is the perfect tourist destination; fantastic weather, beautiful white beaches lapped by the Indian ocean, verdant parks, inviting vineyards and an eclectic fusion of European and Asian cuisine. In short it has everything a dream holiday resort could desire - except holiday makers.
Its just too far, even for other Australians. Sydney to Perth is one hour and three time zones further than London to Tripoli. As for European travellers, its a straight 20 hour flight and 9 time zones to negotiate. While this does not stop everyone, (it didn't stop us!) it does mean that the devil will be skating to work before package holiday makers on chav airlines (you know who i mean) are arriving in force. Of course this means that if you do come to Perth you won't find any Geordie stag parties throwing up on the beach, nor will you find gaggles of inebriated teenagers from Barnsley drinking tequila slammers on the beach at 9am. Sadly it means those ambassadors for our native country who think that required dress on a holiday is an england shirt and speedos, and like to while away the afternoon in ye olde sailors arms pubbe with a kebab, will be similarly disappointed.
Instead, when you get to the beach you find you are sharing it with the locals; families with kids building castles, students on the surf, people from the city catching up after a day at the office over a glass semillion or a latte. And its just fabulous. Its also why Perth, despite, or perhaps because, its so isolated, is one of my favourite places on earth.
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