If you live in Perth, and even if you're just visiting,
Kings Park,
up there on 'the mount', can easily become a bit of a green oasis hub – one with a cracking view over the rest of your town.
You can admire the Swan below you and catch a waft of a sunny breeze off the coastline (which you can't quite see here, I'll grant), and aside from the spikes of the city blocks you can see the suburbs sprawl flatly away up to the mountains.
But I'm getting too carried away by the view, there's plenty of Kings to experience without getting all gooey eyed and looking far off into the distance, the foreground is worth visiting for as well. Kings is a big park, some of it manicured, some of it bush land. You can walk around the paths that weave around the botanical bit, reading the names of the endemic plants you see all around you from the little informative tags, or you can bring your picnic rung and sprawl out on a generous patch of grass. If you have a head for heights,
and you love a good view as much as I clearly do, then you can walk the
Federation Walkway, which starts amongst the trees and ends up amongst the treetops on a glass walkway surrounded by eucalyptus leaves.
Kings is also the home of Western Australia's
State War Memorial, which is a good place to be around if you have something to contemplate around in your head, and there's a formal
play area if the beauty and variety of the great outdoors isn't enough for your kids. There's also cafes and a gift shop – you can't escape them these days so you may as well embrace them and appreciate the fact that this is how this park is kept so clean and sweet smelling. Though the scent is probably to do with those endemic plants again.
A road runs though Kings Park, and remains open late, so it's quite a romantic spot to bring your paramour to enjoy a picnic watching one of Perth's spectacular sunsets.
