Hi,

My wife works for a big international bank and her boss offered her a job over in Perth, at a place called Booragoon, apparently in a shopping centre there.

We might go over there for a couple of weeks at the bank's expense to check it out. We would look for somewhere to rent initially and then probably buy a place there, preferrably a townhouse or a house if the budget stretches that far.

Whats the job market like there now? I currently work in IT but its a low-mid level job at a school. I'm thinking of getting back into teaching as I enjoyed it more than fixing computers and stuff like that. I'm not interested in teaching kids that don't give a crap about learning anything. I've been there and done that, I'd rather banging my head against the wall for 6 hours.

Are there any suburbs that should be avoided? I think Armadale is a bit dodgy isn't it? We would prefer to live somewhere close to work so at this stage somewhere close to Booragoon.

I've been to Perth before, but it was only for some parties and passing through on the way to Lancelin, so I don't know it well. I remember the CBD being pretty small compared to Sydney's or Melbourne's.

Come on all you WAers. Sell your state.

Oh yeah and... 2min away is Brentwood: full of 3x1 strat type jobbies also and maybe some reasonably priced renters

6 months ago I came over with the plan on living here for a year at the most...

Now I'm looking at buying a house here!

Come over and join the party

I spent 4 weeks there in March while working remotely and compared to Sydney I found it easy to get around. There certainly isn't the traffic problems that we have here.

I stick to around Rockingham because I like the flat water sailing at Safety Bay, although I think the area has a pretty negative image to a lot of people in Perth. Some people were shocked that I would drive a whole hour on the freeway to get from SB up to places north of Perth.

The freeway was great, and no hassles. I don't know what it is like in peak hour though.

I'm not sure that you would need to live that close to your work unless you really wanted to ditch the car. I didn't find any delays getting anywhere except for when they were working on the freeway itself.

The downsides of my visits there is I really don't know much about Perth apart from the great windsurfing in summer...

When you get on the roads don't forget to stick your head up your butt and glue your middle finger to the windscreen, seems to work for most of them over there.
flame suit on[}:)]

I wonder if it's the influx of people from all over which is contributing to such bad driving in Perth? With the boom on there are so many moving here that had licenses issued in other states or countries it's little wonder there is no consistency.

One thing that's really starting to bug me is people drifting into my lane. Not merging, just putting their wheels on my side of the line and driving across both lanes. I seriously considered ramming one the other day; my bull bar wouldn't have been damaged if I had. I got up next to her and saw that she was fiddling with some sort of doll (presumably for a child in the car) with both hands off the wheel and not concentrating on the road too well.

I get sick of this endless, "the drivers are bad" crap.

they are not THAT bad .... OK, they have problems with the concept of merge .... but other than that its all OK.

Booragoon and surrounding suburbs are nice, your reasonably close to Melville, if you dont mind sailing in the river, not really that far from Safety Bay, if you like flat water on the ocean etc. etc.

One thing you will be sadly disappointed in is the public transport.
Based around Booragoon, your only public transport option is buses, with the nearest train running along the freeway, between Mandurah and Perth.
The taxi's SUCK big time, if you can even get one
You WILL need your own car for anything outside of peak hours.

I am sure the drivers in Victoria are just as bad as WA. I noticed it when I moved down from QLD 8 years ago.

Down here a roundabout may as well be a stop sign. NO ONE knows how to merge! Then they complain endlessly about how roundabouts dont work. Why cant everyone drive as perfectly as me??

At least the roads in WA and NT crap all over what we have here in QLD, When we crossed back into QLD after spending a year in WA we didn't need a sign to tell us, the roads got one foot narrower with no shoulders and lots of pot holes.
Its a disgrace to the QLD Gov. that it was so noticable.

Moby, I notice from your previous posts you like public transport, sadly as mentioned in Perth I belive its crap. The trick, I think, is to live near work, avoid peak hour use your bike and pack the car up ready to get to your preferd sailing spot, avoiding peak hour. Booragoon is as good a suburb as you can get, unless your rich! If you can get a local job, AppleX is perfect and you can knock off early you will get all the sailing you want on the river or along the coast. Perth is a city for cars, more people are using the main arterial public transport routes now bcause of fuel prices, but unless you work in the city, I reckon you want quick access to your car so you can shoot of at 3.30 for a sail at cottesloe, or with daylight sailing, you zoom up the freeway to Lancelin at that time of the day and still have a long session.
I reckon youd get a job in Freo carving Yiros if you applied.

stribo said...

mmmmmmmm Yiros

damnit! They are kebabs!

I also noticed over there that they sell 'shark and chips'. Over here they probably just sell shark to you anyway.

No matter where I went, I couldn't find any 'whitepointer and chips'. Why is that?

warning...most windsurfing people who move to WA or even just pop over for a look,ARE NEVER SEEN AGAIN !!!! (on the east coast)

dont like talking it up, so all im saying is pack the car......

Surfing on sunday am sublime conditions, slightly offshore, glassy, bit of swell, sunny, coastal stip glowing in the morning sun, cool line up, then someone mentioned bacon and eggs. ahhahahahhhhhhh.

How about Moby gets a dingy going with a BBQ on the back, the whole thing, coffee, bacon and egg burgers, Im happy to stick a $10 in my wetty and hand over to the man. Maybe get a tow out to the reef.......

As they say plenty of opportunitys in Perth....

AND were screaming out or teachers who can teach IT.

poor relative said...

Close to beach, river and shopping.

In Perf, everyone is close to beach, river and shopping