Western Australia Sounds like a lovely place to live.

Hello. I only found this posting today. I do think that where I live is really wonderful. Lots of trees and birds and an acre of trees at the bottom of our street. We have 4 seasons in WA - summer which gets to be quite hot with heatwaves - the temperature fluctuates between around 35 degrees C and around 40-43C in summer. Autumn is starting to get cooler but lots of the trees keep their leaves and there's not much rain. Cool, wet winters and delightful, warm springs that make you glad to be alive. We have some of the best beaches in the world. Cost of living gets more expensive each year and this includes petrol and food. Meat is expensive and it is becoming harder to make ends meet. 5 years ago, you could buy a reasonable home in a lot of areas for around $185,000 AUS then we had a boom and now houses are around 500,000 which puts them out of the reach of a lot of people because wages haven't caught up. I spend half of my wage on my mortgage and a lot of people including me need to work extra jobs to pay for rent and mortgages. A lot of people here like to use credit and they have a lot of debt that they can't service because they are using their credit cards to pay for bills due to the difficulty with paying for rent or mortgage. It has been esimated that between 300,000 and 400,000 people will lose their homes this year and to make it more difficult, we have a resources boom. A lot of people are making over $100,000 p.a. on the mines and many people are coming to WA and that has put pressure on the rental market. There is a 1.4% vacancy rate so a lot of people just can't find rentals. Our downturn in the housing market is not as severe as in the US, but it has never been so expensive here as it is at present. That being said, WA is a lovely place to live and I wouldn't live anywhere else in the world. I have my own piece of paradise as you can see from my pictures. I recommend that you come and visit. We have whales, dolphins, beautiful wildflowers, an excellent mediterranian climate and friendly people.

Western Australia is one of the largest states in terms of geographical area in the worls, so the variation between areas is huge. Most of the population is in the Mediterranean or temperate southern third of the state. The far north is sub tropical but there are also large desert areas in the north east where almost no one lives permanently. Large temporary communities exist around areas where the mining industry flourishes.