Exotic Plants Give "No Longer in Guateng" Feeling

Perth felt like anywheresville, a feeling which got even stronger as I drove through the sprawl to the south of the city: an endless cycle of petrol stations, malls and suburbs. Some very large percentage of the population of western australia (97%?) live in the city. I got all excited when, in the middle of the suburbs, I saw my first ever 'beware of kangaroo' sign even if, to date, I still haven't seen a live kangaroo, only the road-kill variety.

It took a brief visit to the tiny Yalgorup National Park, on the coast south of Perth, and a short walk through the exotic shrubbery to really drive home to me that (outside of the cities) I was on a foreign continent, and a long way from home. In quick succession, I saw plants I later had fun identifying in the Museum of Western Australia: banksia cones, grass trees, palms and everywhere masses of wild flowers - its spring here at the moment.

Then the exotic feeling got even stronger when I saw this dinosaur.

Ok, the dinosaur is not real (model of Carnotaurus Sastrei, Museum of Western Australia) but it shows that in Australia, even the dinosaurs are different.