We got to spend the past three days in Perth in Western Australia.  With about 1.7 million people, Perth is Australia’s fourth largest city (after Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane). It sits on the the Swan River, just a few kilometers off the cost of the Indian Ocean. It’s kind of an odd city in a couple of ways. For starters, it’s supposed to be the most isolated major city in the world. Nothing is close by, which means everything is outrageously expensive.

Beyond that, it’s a city that has exploded in the past few years thanks to the mining boom here. As a result, there’s a ton of major construction projects going on, so the city is a hodge podge of ultra modern architecture, concrete monstrosities from the 1960s and 1970s, and then a variety of much older buildings that date back a hundred years or more. The result of all this is a city that feels like a combination of Phoenix, Denver, and parts of Florida. And it’s got the weather of Las Vegas. It’s sunny here 300 days a year and balls hot for most of them.

While here, we went to Cottesloe Beach to take our first swim in the Indian Ocean. We also went to the port town of Fremantle, and visited the prison there. While Ryan was at work (we came because he had a business trip), I tooled around downtown and checked out the underwhelming Western Australia Museum and the more interesting Perth Mint, which is home to the world’s largest gold coin. Weighing in at one ton of solid gold, it’s valued at over AU$58 million.

Tomorrow we are headed back to Sydney. While I think we saw the highlights of Perth, there’s lots of things in Western Australia that we hope to come back and see on another trip. Below are a few photos of the highlights of the last few days:

Will try to post more often once we are back in Sydney. Until then, good night from Western Australia!