ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Western Australia is home to the highest rates of ‘wanderlust’ in the country, prompting the youth to travel far and wide before they return home to roost.
One of the main reasons why young Western Australians yearn for the unknown is the prohibitive cost of getting blind in the Perth, their capital and the most isolated city on the planet.
Despite having locally-made delicacies such as Emu Export, Little Creatures and San Cisco, the cost of those products is grossly inflated by the relatively high income of residents thanks to the mining boom.
Arriving in London last week, 24-year-old traveller Mark Garrity has found a place to crash on his brother’s mate’s floor in the north-eastern suburb of Chalk Farm.
“It’s pretty flash around here. There’s a shit tonne of Russians here and they’re all rich. Just like all the foreign investors back home, they’re rolling in it,” he explained.
Like most people under 30, the Tame Impala fan is almost completely broke and shouldn’t really be travelling in the first place.
That valid point prompted him to duck down to his brother’s mate’s local dive bar, The Garden Arms in nearby working-class Hampstead Heath.
“I tried to be sensible and order a pint of Stella, you know, because that’s what domestic abusers drink over here because it’s cheap as chips and the bloke came back and asked for 11 quid,” he said.
“I almost fainted! How cheap! You know how much a pint of Bush Chook costs in a flash bar in Perth? At the Royal Freshie in Peppermint Grove, they’d pick you up and rattle every last cent out of you for a Little Creatures stubby,”
“Then they’d say you’re too pissed to have another one.”
Mark says he has plans to head back to Perth one day, but that will be the day he hangs up his drinking jacket for good. Another than the odd pint after work or a weekend getaway to Margaret River, he says sinking tins in Perth is just too expensive.
More to come.
Dear Sirs,
As a Western Australian I was appalled, shocked, outraged, miffed, made odd gurgling noises, and even lightly soiled myself after reading this article. Not only do you take our GST money, you print blatant lies to further your pro-eastern agenda.
Piss is dirt cheap in this great state of ours if you would only bother to check. This Mark Garrity – probably not his real name I’ll bet – is clearly a fool, or a South Australian who has entered this state illegally and is working as a time-wasting tosspot and thus taking a job off of bona fide Western Australians who are way better qualified, or a former Palmer United candidate, or originally from Ravensthorpe. Whichever it is, he clearly knows NOTHING about getting shit-faced on a budget in the west.
For any tourists who might be scared away by lies like these, allow me to supply readers with 5 random handy tips for getting cheap grog all across this state. Innovative enthusiasts will soon find out there are many other ways not covered here.
1. Jostling old blokes who don’t look like they can get annoyed and fight back as they’re leaving the bar with a round is dead easy and guarantees at least half a glass gets spilt in the process. Simply pulling out the sponge you’re carrying in your pocket and mopping it up before the bloke behind the bar gets a chance to do so can keep you in booze for hours. Seems to work a treat in metropolitan pubs and any country ones with either a loud sound system playing shit music or with the telly behind the bar set on the racing channel.
2. The pub at Nullagine has a ground floor window on the eastern side of the building that doesn’t latch properly. If you can hold off until about 3am, can creep around in the dark without going tits-up and smashing into the furniture, and have a ute waiting with a full tank of fuel, you can clear out the fridges behind the bar and be out of the Shire before the coppers in town have a clue as to what’s just happened.
3. The Australia Day fireworks down at the river invariably leads to a sea of piss left over in bottles scattered all over the grass. It’s like hunter-gathering from the old days, only never likely to ever be a subject worthy of making a cave painting of. I have known mates who have blown 0.28 after only 20 minutes worth of scavenging just around South Perth jetty.
4. If you can do a convincing job of flashing a video shop card and pretending it’s a police badge you’d be astounded just how much free grog you can confiscate from people sitting on the grassed area in front of the BP garage in Fitzroy Crossing. As a rule you shouldn’t try this one two days in a row.
5. There’s a crazy old woman with cats living in Bruce Rock who will talk to anybody and share all her piss with them for absolutely no reason at all. I’ve gotten blind there on several occasions, have no idea what she was talking about – she giggles a lot and runs around her living room with a pair of her old pants on her head just so you know, and each time she treats me like she’s never seen me before and has the first cold one in my hand even before I’ve blurted out whatever made-up story I was planning to use. If spending a few hours afterwards trying to get cat hair off your clothes doesn’t bother you, the Wheatbelt can be a really great place to operate on a tight budget.
Regards
Ron Muppet
onya Ron
[…] or is it other commodities and services as well? An interesting article has recently appeared on Betoota Advocate that highlights a Perth man who is excited to only be paying 11 pounds for a pint of beer. Now to […]
Great tips Ron. Cheers heaps:)