One thing that is immediately apparent about Western Australia is that it is rather large. In fact, it’s bloody massive. This one state covers some 2.5 million square kilometres and, comparatively speaking, there is hardly anyone in it. If you’re into swinging cats, this is the place to be - there’s more wide open space in WA than virtually any other populated location on earth.
To many people the remoteness is an attraction in itself. The WA experience could hardly be further away from the mega-touristy and commercial conditions that visitors to the east coast of Australia encounter, yet the west has a wealth of natural and cultural attractions which its glitzier cross-continental cousin states can only dream about.
The beautiful and vibrant city of Perth holds the twin honours of being both the world’s most isolated and sunniest capital city, and that is only the starting point of your WA adventure. Want some more reasons why everyone should Go West? Well glance your goggles over this lot:
Western Australia...
• is bigger than the whole of Western Europe.
• has a population of just two million people, with about 90% of those living in and around Perth.
• enjoys an average winter temperature of 18C and a summer one of 30C.
• is home to countless Aboriginal language groups.
• boasts the world’s oldest living organisms - stromatolites in the Shark Bay World Heritage Area - and evidence of the planet’s first recorded life forms entombed in the Gascoyne and Kimberley regions.
• takes up roughly one third of the whole of Australia.
• has Australia’s biggest monocline - that’s a rock to you and me - in the shape of Burringurrah, which is twice the size of NT’s Uluru and can be found in Mount Augustus National Park.
• is four times larger than Texas, USA.
• was first ‘discovered’ by a Dutch trading ship in 1616. Captain Dirk Hartog, the first European to set foot on Australian land, did so about 160 years before England’s Captain Cook waded ashore and stuck a Union Jack in the ground.
• contains a region - the Kimberley - which is three times the size of England, but has a population of only about 26,000.
• experiences ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ seasons in its north - rather than winters and summers.
• has over 70 National Parks and two World Heritage Listed areas - Shark Bay and Purnululu National Park (the Bungle Bungles).
• is visited every year by the world’s largest fish, the gigantic whale shark.
What to call Aussies...
Perth locals – Perthites
West Australians – Sandgropers
South Australians – Crow Eaters
Northern Territorians – Territorians
Queenslanders – Banana Benders
New South Welsh People - Sydney Siders
Victorians – Mexicans (south of the border)
Tasmanians - Taswegians
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