Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood - Getting to Know Your Home Edition...

Welcome to the first Nosey Parker in the Neighbourhood Linky Party!!

I hope you will play along, link up and go get nosey with your neighbours so that we can all get to know each other a little more ;)
Not much more to say, just please link back to this post in your post so that everybody can have the opportunity to browse & join in too if they want.
So off you go and be nosey browsing everyone's homes :)

Oh ooops I forgot to mention - our next Nosey linky party will be on Dec 27th (with a month to link up if you need more time - just like this time) and will feature how we all celebrated Christmas in our parts of the world. So keep your eyes peeled for the next set of questions :)

My answers for this round:

Question 1: About my home...

I currently live in Perth, Western Australia were we moved from New Zealand almost 3 years ago now. Apart from the distance from family & friends we  love it here! No plans to move back to New Zealand any time in the near future much to my parents disgust.

Perth has a population of approx 1.7 million people, but they are spread out over quite a large land area. We live in the most Southern region of the city, about 50km south of the Central Business District (CBD) and probably 100 (or more) km south of the top of the city.

We are very very isolated here in terms of location from other cities. - The nearest city to Perth would probably be about a 4 hour plane ride. With not much in between except for desert too I might add! So it's just as well we like it here because it's pretty isolated...

One of my favourite things about Perth is that it's built right along the coast, and also the fact that we live about 3 blocks from the beach. This is totally and utterly fabulous just about all of the time, with the exception of the fact that my house & car are never free from an abundance of sand - it gets everywhere! LOL....

Perth is also a very hot & sunny place to live. In winter the temperature doesn't often get below about 15-16 degrees Celsius during the day and in summer the temperature regularly sits around 40 degrees Celcius. So lets just say that I'm thankful that we have air conditioning!
But I love the fact that the sun shines for probably 80% of the year. Last summer I believe we actually went 3 months without seeing a drop of rain. We actually went out and danced in the first rain after that break because it had been so long & rain was a bit of a novelty.
I even took a photo of it at the time for my blog because it was that momentous!

Western Australia is a HUGE state in size & it is probably most known for it's abundance of natural resources & it's mining industry. Which happens to happily supply my husband with his job too!

Question 2: What are the houses like in my area...

The standard house in Perth seems to be what we describe as a 4x2. Not a size of wood like that would describe in New Zealand, but rather a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom (usually brick & tile) home. Usually they are only 1 story high and also have an office, at least 2 if not 3 living rooms and a double garage.
Most houses would be detached and on their own "block". Although the blocks of land aren't huge & usually the house takes up the grand majority of it not leaving much room for a front & back yard.

This is a fairly typical view of a street in Suburbia:

my old neighbourhood....

Not all houses & streets look the same as this obviously, especially the older areas (like my area - because I live so close to the beach my home is a much smaller 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom character home), but thanks to the mining boom of the last 10 or so years, new estates of those kind of houses have popped up everywhere and they are all pretty well clones of each other. So Perth does feel like quite a young, modern & rapidly expanding city.

Question 3: Some of my favourite places...

Since I am a fairly typical "desperate housewife" (my brother's words not mine) I don't really get out to exciting places all that much. So my favourite places tend to be the beach & the huge selection of wonderful parks that we are blessed to have here. One thing that I'm incredibly thankful for is that the developers here put so much effort into building & maintaining the estate's parks. Each estate is almost built around a beautiful park. These usually have a play ground and a large field to play in, and often also have free barbecues, a duck pond & fountain, and gazebos or some kind of seating.

We also love to visit the city on occasion and in particular "Kings Park". There are so many wonderful things to see & do at Kings park, it has spectacular views over the Perth CBD and it is such a great place to spend the day having a picnic & taking a walk to admirer the gardens and views.

the view of Perth city from Kings Park...

A fountain on one of the many walks...

Lastly we occasionally love the visit the wildlife parks and experience the Australian wildlife up close & personal.
At times we've experienced it r.e.a.l.l.y up close & personal....

Not quite sure Hannah was as thrilled about a real one close up as she was about her favourite toy snake!

And lastly, another of my favourite things is the fact that we live across the road from a lake & nature reserve...

This not only gives us great views, but we also get to marvel at the incredible bird life that it is home to. After 2 years here I still get a thrill every time I see a huge group of pelicans flying over head, not to mention all the other colourful and varied Australian birds.

Question 4: How do most people travel around the city?

For the most part Perth has a fairly good public transport system. The train system is great anyhow and a huge number of people use the trains to commute to the city each day to work.
In general though, because things here are so spread out, people tend to drive. When I think of the "typical Western Australian vehicle" these are what would spring to mind....

image

That's not to say that everyone drives Holdens - but it is quite a stereotypical Australian car. That or a "ute" or 4x4. Generally pretty big cars.

Questions 5: Is there a type of food Perth is famous for?

Not that I can think of right now... In general I think that the food here is not as tasty as in New Zealand. Although I can tell you that I look forward to Mango season. Mmmmm.... WA Mangoes are soooooo good!!

Hope you enjoyed getting to know me a bit more - I can't wait to go visit you now!

So ready, steady, go link....