Western Australia Transportation

a very nice city close to perth 

wonderful shitwhole close to Perth, WA
nothing to see, nothing to do. Except working on local farms.
Check out neighbor vineyards and national parks, a must!
Go online in Bullsbrook Library !

At breakfast this morning, I carefully lifted the milk jug from the buffet table and was slightly surprised to find that the whole thing fell apart in my hands. Several pints of milk sloshed all over the carpet and I found myself standing in the middle of a small white puddle holding nothing but a handle. For a moment, I imagined that I was about to find myself surrounded by kitchen staff cursing and swearing at me - but instead the waitress merely raised her eyes to heaven for a moment, walked casually over to take what was left of the jug from me, smiled and said "Well that's not the first time that's happened, I can tell you!". Good milk jugs must be at a premium in Western Australia. I went out to see Broome. It's only five blocks to the shopping center, promised my map. What it didn't point out was that the scale was about 1:1,000,000 and that every intersection was about a kilometre from the last. So I walked. And walked. Every block was exactly the same - roads in four directions, a couple of houses on each corner, weird pineapple shaped trees lining the roads. There seemed to be no pavements in Broome, but it didn't make much difference because there appeared to be no cars either. Occasionally a bloody great road-train would rumble by, the cab belching vicious looking chemicals into the air and attached to six or seven freight containers, each the length of a bus. This would give me a moment of amusement as I sat on a wall and watched the driver trying to negotiate a corner without demolishing the houses, and then I'd head off again for the next intersection, another kilometre further on. All four sides of every intersection were bordered by huge octagonal signs adorned with the word "STOP" in large red letters. So I would stop, look both ways, repeat a few times for comedic effect, and then erect my own sign underneath which read "Why, exactly?". Nothing was ever coming in Broome. On the subject of road signs in Australia, I am definitely noticing a lot of dumbing down going on. When I first noticed the chalk outlines of people drawn on pedestrian crossings in Sydney, I let it go - but it seems to have got worse as I've travelled westward. On a post near the Boulevard Shopping Centre in downtown Broome, I discovered a big yellow octagonal sign upon which was printed in large friendly letters: TO CROSS THE ROAD, FOLLOW THE FOOTPRINTS A set of footprints, drawn on the road, led the way to the other side. Who exactly is this for? I have also seen, painted onto the road in various places, a picture of a bicycle above which is another picture of a mother and baby - somebody needs to tell the government of Australia that road signs are supposed to be comprehensible to visitors. What does this mean? Only bicycles and mothers with babies in this lane? Be aware of mothers and babies when riding your bicycle? All new mothers must ride bicycles? What? I wanted to get a film developed so I found my way eventually to the big new Boulevard Shopping Center downtown. This was a place for serious shopping - hundreds of boutiques arranged in tidy rows, benches to sit on next to ornamental fountains, shiny polished walkways with tapestries of Australia hanging from the walls. No customers, of course - but then I wasn't really expecting anything else. Personally I was just glad of the air conditioning, which literally smacked me in the face as soon as the doors slid back and allowed me to drag my dehydrated carcase inside - it must've been at least 110 degrees out there today. I clawed my way across the lobby and into the Kodak shop, where I pulled myself up to the counter with the last of my strength and flopped down in front of the disinterested looking assistant:
"Please," I begged her, "Tell me you develop APS film here."
She looked at me as though she couldn't quite make up her mind whether to feel sorry for this bedraggled mess slumped over her counter, or call security and have me escorted from the building. After what seemed an age, she decided instead to turn and stride away into the back room, calling back as she went that I wanted the Image Plaza in Chinatown. That's another thing they all seem to think they're good at over here - mind reading. Chinatown was more of a Chinastreet really, on which the local shopping centre and all the shops had been built to resemble little white pagodas. It was very pretty and quite surreal at the same time, and not at all what I had been expecting to find in a place like Broome - in my experience, Chinatown is somewhere you'll find in big international cities such as New York and London where there is a large Chinese community, but this one seemed to be there just for the sake of it. There wasn't a single Chinese person anywhere, but if there had been they would have been very impressed with the community Broome has built for them. Just to confuse matters even further, the shopping centre in Chinatown contained a number of cafes and restaurants, none of which was Chinese. I had lunch in an atmospheric little bistro which had a tree growing right out of the floor in the middle of the dining area. The place was decorated in an Italian style, I was waited on by a chirpy American girl, and the menu was made up of a combination of foods from everywhere in the world except China or Italy. Chinatown in Broome was quite the most multicultural place I'd seen for quite a while - then again, perhaps they're all just really confused in this part of the country. Broome is famous the world over for Cable Beach, a twenty kilometre stretch of perfect powdery white sand which can be reached by a fairly strenuous walk to the outskirts of town or by grabbing a taxi, if you can find one. There's never any junk or crisp packets to distract you on this beach, as the tides are high enough to wash the sand clean twice a day. The walk is worth it just to be able to say that you've swum in the crystal blue waters of the Indian Ocean, although, however inviting it looks there is always some spoilsport hanging around to point out that there are plenty of box jellyfish in the sea between November and March just waiting to sting an unsuspecting tourist to death. There is an episode of Star Trek (Go with me on this one) where Kirk and his crew land on a planet which appears to be paradise but on which all the fruit and the grass and everything that looks even remotely beautiful is filled with acid just below the surface. Well, sometimes you get that impression in Australia - if you ever see something really stunning over here, the first question to generally ask is "How is it going to try to kill me?" Cable Beach also boasts Australia's most famous nudist beach, so if you're the sort of person to whom perfect white sand mean throwing off all your clothes and running in slow motion towards the sunset (which is, naturally, jaw-droppingly beautiful), then there's nearly seventeen kilometres of the beach just for you. At least if you're a man, you won't have to have any cold weather worries in this part of the world! The locals run camel rides up and down the beach - and if you still haven't been put off by my account of sore backside syndrome riding camels in the Red Center, riding a camel along the beach at sunset really isn't an experience you're going to be able to have in many other places around the world. Unfortunately, I'm only in Broome for a little over a day so I can't cram in everything I'd like to see. Other attractions of the area which I will have to schedule for a later date include the hundred million year old dinosaur footprints embedded in the rock at Gantheaume Point, which can only be seen when the tide is out. There's also a perfectly round pool nearby which was built by the lighthouse keeper to give his wife Anastasia relief from her arthritis, and I would particularly like to witness a phenomena which occurs for three nights every month between March and October called "The Staircase to the Moon", caused by the full moon rising over the rocks and reflecting in the shallow waters. I hadn't reckoned on the floods delaying me so much in Queensland and the Northern Territories, and I'm booked into a hotel in Perth for the next few nights on a non-refundable basis - I can't help feeling that I am missing so much of Western Australia! Back in my room tonight, I switched on the television in a foolish attempt to sample the delights of Western Australian entertainment and soak up some culture - but after coming half way around the world, it felt exactly as though I was watching TV back home. Neighbours was on.

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2

Over the last few days, I've had the opportunity to take a break from travelling for a while and relax in one of Australia's truly big cities - and I think I've earned it. For nearly a week, there has been no worrying about having to catch a connection, and certainly no having to phone up bus companies to find out which parts of my route are currently underwater. I am annoyed that the combination of floods and prebooking my hotel in Perth has prevented me from stopping off on the coast as I particularly wanted to go to Monkey Mia and swim with Dolphins, but the coach stops there about once a week and on my schedule, I really can't afford to find myself missing a bus and being stuck for days! Having so much free time in Perth has given me a chance to kick back and properly enjoy the city without feeling as though I'm in a rush to move on, so I've been doing all the things that a world traveller would normally avoid like the plague - stuff that I haven't really had a chance to do since leaving England. I've been to the cinema to see movies that I hadn't even heard about, I've been shopping in huge urban shopping centres and eaten in an international food court that was so international that I was able to buy a full English Sunday Roast dinner of Roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, roast potato and gravy from the Japanese Store! Perth seems like a young London - busy, vibrant, full of streets of café's and restaurants, but with less of the hustle and bustle and more of the carefree laid back attitude I associate with Australia. I have also been able to smile politely at people as I pass them on the street without having anyone put me down as some sort of freak, which is always a bonus. After a thirty-six hour coach trip from Broome, forced to sit next to a young mother whose child spent the entire trip either screaming or demanding to know if we were there yet, Perth felt like I had somewhere to call home for the first time in months. I literally threw everything into a corner of my hotel room, checked out the moss growing on the wall outside my window, and went out to explore (1). At first I didn't recognise anything from my first brief visit here back in 1995, but after strolling happily for several hours through malls and pedestrian precincts without a clue where I was going, I literally crossed a street and knew exactly where I was. All the memories came flooding back and suddenly I knew just how to get to everything - the train station, the cinema, the harbour front, the nightlife. Perth harbour isn't anywhere near as grand as Darling Harbour in Sydney, but in my opinion is all the better for it. Here, you can spend a relaxing afternoon away from the city center, drinking coffee outside a waterfront coffee shop or browsing the windows of the boutique and souvenir shops crowded around the jetties. The area is dominated by a small square surrounded by the flags of various nations, and stretching away around the harbour are shops, bars and pubs - one of which has the unfortunate name of "The Lucky Shag", which I was under the impression was how some people like to describe a good Friday night out. I took a two hour river cruise to the port of Fremantle, during which I copied everybody else by taking my shirt off and then got so involved in watching the city go by that I ended up getting severely sunburned. I also took the Ferry to Perth Zoo in the south of the city, which is remarkable in that it is open every single day of the year including Christmas Day - I spent a relaxed afternoon wandering around the confusing array of pathways between the environments, and enjoyed seeing all the funny animals I've ever heard about, like Rhinoceros, Tigers, Cats and Mink. Hang on - that's the lyrics to the Pink Panther show! Bears, Giraffes, Elephants, Zebra and Hyena joined the local Australian wildlife and looked well cared for and happy, although I still haven't managed to see a single Duck-billed Platypus, which is a shame.

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2

Last time I came to Perth, I stayed in a charming little Swedish hotel called "Miss Maud's", which was full of winding corridors, creaky lifts and even had it's own Swedish Coffee Shop and Restaurant. This time, my hotel is a new addition to the city and has been having a few teething troubles. Nevertheless, they seem to exhibit the standard Australian relaxed and friendly attitude towards the situation, and the reception staff have been happy to put anything right the moment it goes wrong. When I pointed out to them casually on the way out the other day that they were showing the wrong movie on the in-house movie channel, they instantly refunded the cost and changed it over immediately. While I was out, I imagine they must've had several complaints from couples all over the hotel who had been happily snuggled up in bed watching a romantic comedy and suddenly found themselves watching the second half of Die Hard 2. The next day they were showing the movies in the wrong order and because the VCR swaps them over on a timer according to the lengths of the films, everything was getting cut off ten minutes from the end. Again, they just refunded everybody. Perfectly good customer service, of course - but if they don't get things right at some point I can see them being bankrupt in no time! The TV stations themselves don't seem to entirely know what they're doing either. According to ABC, every night at 8.00 is supposed to be "Classic British comedy" - tonight, I turned on for an episode of Black Adder and found myself watching a program called Murder Squad, in which Essex Police were looking for a man who was going around casually setting fire to people who passed him in the street. Not quite the same thing. On my second day in the city, I joined the local "tourist tram" service which takes visitors on a two and a half hour tour of the city - a service which appeared to me to be sponsored by the local nightlife as it was mainly the casinos, nightclubs and bars which we trundled past, even to the point where we were offered the chance to get off and walk through the biggest casino in town. Perth is a sprawling city of suburbs and an extensive train system links all the outlying areas to the city center, where the central station is large and modern and reminded me of Liverpool Street in London. The trains are sleek and modern, and a pleasure to travel on compared to the dirty graffiti covered ones back home. They aren't overcrowded, and there are four suburban lines serving all the outer districts. Each line has slow and express services in case you don't want to stop at every station - on each line, there are trains that stop at every station, trains that stop at the first half of the stations and skip the second half, and trains that skip the first half and stop at the second half. This struck me as a very efficient system which seems to get everybody to where they want to go in a reasonable amount of time. The large, shiny information machines located on the platform of every suburban station, however, rather let the system down for me and should probably be renamed "lack of information machines" - no matter which button I pressed, the screen lit up with the helpful statement "No Information Available", so I'm afraid I can't regale you with vast amounts of knowledge about the outer districts of Perth. Instead, in an attempt to at least see some of suburban Perth while I was here, I simply closed my eyes and took a random stab at the map and ended up heading out to the town of Cottesloe which turned out to be a fairly small suburb, the station backing onto a sleepy side street. I spent a couple of hours browsing happily in the shop windows, and had lunch in a café near to the shopping precinct. It was nice to find the small urban side to this vast city, and quite unusual to find it more like the towns back home than the traditional outback village. The nightlife in Perth is every bit as vibrant as you would expect from a big city, and there are no shortage of things to occupy you after the sun has set.
I had been told that most of the decent nightclubs were based in the James Street area, but it quickly become obvious that the whole of the Northbridge area around James came alive at night - but the nightlife here seems to be somewhat different to the nightlife back home. In most parts of the world, nightlife means a handful of darkened clubs playing loud dance music while lines of scantily clad girls and blokes in jeans form outside waiting to be frisked by bouncers who don't appear to have much chance of holding down any job which doesn't involve lifting people from the ground and throwing them several metres. Perth, and in fact Australia in general, seems to have a much more enlightened and relaxed way of enjoying themselves. The entire area around Northbridge is littered with cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars, clubs and coffee shops - the average night out can involve having a meal and coffee, sitting outside a bar chatting with friends, and then wandering up and down the crowded streets for hours checking out several clubs. Clubs are far more diverse than at home, offering anything from Jazz to Dance to music from the 70s - a night out in Perth seems to be much more about hanging out with friends outside a bar and occasionally wandering into a club for a dance than the six hours of sweating on a single dance floor we're used to back home. The fact that everybody is so friendly is also a bonus - especially as being a traveller in a foreign land is usually a pretty good way of meeting people. No sooner had I walked through the door of my first club than I was being chatted up by two stunning Australian girls called, rather exotically, Skye and Monique. They were on a short holiday from a small town a couple of hundred miles away, and had just wandered into the club and started introducing themselves to everyone - although as soon as they found out I was from England they seemed to forget about everyone else and just wanted to buy me drinks and find out if I needed showing around Perth. This also happens in America, and I've never really been able to get my head around it - it seems that just having a British accent makes a person very popular in certain parts of the world, and the fact that we seem to have spent most of the last few hundred years invading and starting wars with everyone in the name of the British Empire seems to have gone mostly un-noticed! Monique and Skye introduced me to just about everyone else in the club and by the time I was too tired to stand up any more, at about five in the morning, I felt as though I'd known everyone for years.

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2