My Rekkie Report:

PERTH REKKIE, APRIL 2008 by Mark&San, posted May 2008

Author/Date	Message	Action
Mark&San 5 May 2008	I have read & asked questions on this site for over 18 months, so i think it's about time i put something back into it. So here goes, we are a family of 6 from Bristol, who received are visas last summer. So we had to enter Australia by the 15th August this year or lose the visas. We decided on a holiday/rekkie first as we had never been before. We flew from Heathrow with Emirates on Monday the 7th April @ 14.00. We had a 2/3 hour stopover in Dubai & then onto Perth, landing @ 17.30 local time on the Tuesday. We found Emirates fantastic. Lots of food & things for us & the boys to do (film, TV, music & games). It did help that the 4 boys slept most of the way from Dubai to Perth. We picked up are hired car (hired from M2000, recommended from the mints) from the car park, left with the car park attendant, the only problem we had was my husband trying to fit the 2 child seats. But after a few choice words they were fitted & we were on are way. We found are rental house in Pembury Way, Butler after a couple of wrong turns. A lovely 4 bed house with a swimming pool & spa. lovely & clean, the owners had left the keys in the letter box for us. We spent the first day looking around Butler & food shopping at Coles. The shopping is slightly more expenses then the UK. We spent around $300 on shopping that in the UK would have cost us about £110. The next week we spent on a different beach everyday, starting with Mullaloo beach, Hillarys, North Beach, Trigg Beach, Scarborough Beach, City Beach & Cottesloe Beach. All the beaches were fantastic, clean, not crowed (empty), all had climbing frames & the toilets/showers all very clean. Are favourite beaches were Hillarys because it's very safe for our 2 little ones & still had things for the 2 older ones to do. We also loved Cottesloe Beach because we hired body boards for the older 2, but me & my husband spent more time on them! We looked at show homes in Butler (The Green) & Burns Beach, both were great, but you have to be careful about the extras (internal painting, flooring, light fittings & landscaping) not included in the price. Also for how big Australia is, they build the houses very close together. We spoke to the local bank in Butler (BankWest) they were very helpful, they suggested putting are money in there Foreign Currency Account. It stays in £'s & you convert to $'s when/if the exchange rate goes up! It also pays a good rate of interest. We had a tour both East Butler & Butler primary schools, both looked very good with excellent sporting facilities. But Butler primary school had over 800 pupils & the school is only designed for about 400 pupils, so they use alot of temporary classrooms & speaking to the principal, he told use they are struggling to cope with the demand, but now with East Butler opened this will help & also there is another primary school planned for Jindalee. As for high schools Clarkson is the nearest state school to Butler. There is a new state high school planned for Butler, but nobody seems to know when this will happen. After 10 nights in Butler we moved down to Clarkson, staying in a 4 bed house, by Ocean Keys Shopping Centre. The house was fantastic (like a show house), but the location was a little bit close to the shopping centre. The weather in are last week had changed & was now cloudy with a bit of rain (english summer weather), but still warm. We visited many places in are 17 night stay including:- Cohunu Kola & Native Wildlife Park - a great place to hold a kola bear, we went into Perth on the transperth train system - very clean & safe, Kings Park - fantastic views across Perth & Swan River, Open top bus tour around Perth - a great way to see all the sights, Perth Zoo - a lovely big zoo, but found parking a bit of a problem, AQWA - a great place to see sharks, Yanchep Lagoon - weather cloudy the day we went, but it looked a great fun & safe place to go with children & Adventure World - a great fun day out for all the family. Conclusions from are trip, Australia seems a great place to bring up children & there are opportunities for everybody. will we go? We have decided to give it a month or so back in the UK & then make are decision. Watch this space!!!!!!!!!!
Cedric 18 May 2008	Good reckie. The shift in the exchange rate has something to do with food seeming expensive, but in recent months the basic items do seem to be more expensive in WA and we are spending more on a weekly shop. Houses are generally bigger here and cover more of the block than in the UK. I don't think the house we are in now is any closer to the neighbours at each side than our old house back home, but the plot is bigger and the house is single storey so it sprawls more. It is usual to have an undercover entertaining area here because it gets very hot, so you need as much space undercover as possible. We do have a small lawn at the back. Block sizes are getting smaller as land releases are controlled and also because developers see the dollar signs. They can sell two cottage blocks (350 sq. metres or thereabouts) for more than one standard block (they are now around 550-600 sq. metres). Houses on cottage blocks are smaller and have fewer bedrooms generally. Surprisingly they are not that much cheaper than a bigger 4x2 though! There is a lot to think about in moving here, but I think the more you analyse it the worse it gets. Sometimes you have to go with your gut feeling!
Kellerfer 9 Jan 2009	Hiya It looks like you all had a fab time, my husband and I are looking at making the move to Perth. My husband would go asap but realistically it will probably not be til summer next year as our eldest daughter wants to finish high school here first. We are planning our own rekkie but I am worried about the cost to be honest, I understand this is a tad personal but how much roughly did it cost you. I am asking you as we also have 4 children aged, 14, 9, 8 and 5 years old. Any help would be great, thanks !
Mark&San 17 Jan 2009	Hi, our rekkie seems so long ago now but we did have a fantastic time.I would say we spent in total aroud about £7,500 pounds but the flights were £3,900 for 6 of us,we had car hire and the holiday rentals, we spent about £1,000 spending money we did everything we wanted too, but we did not eat out loads, but we did have a few take aways in the house the rest of the time we had the bbq on, i hope this helped a little take care sandra
msg actions: Reply Chg/Del Recommend Add msg to Favs Print msg Add a Photo
-- End of Thread --