On Sunday, we did a walking tour of Claremont. I had gone into the tourist/town information office looking for a map and they had four different walking tours printed on maps like cartoons with little pictures, tidbits to look out for, and jots of historical information. We picked one that started by the house and led us around Swanbourne (pronounced Swan-burn like Mel-burn not Mel-booorn). It was a hazy humid day, perfect for a lazy yet leisurely stroll through the streets of the Perth suburb. The houses here really amaze me. In America, and especially in Ireland, you often see plots of land with similar looking houses based on the architect's style. Here, every single house is different. The styles are often similar, but they alternate. They alternate between oddly modern, to grandious, to dollhouse, to adobe, to colonial, to dinky and set back. I'm surprised by how modern they are, but then I guess I shouldn't be. And the area is quite ridiculously expensive so some of the houses are just breath-taking. We got a little sense of the history of the place: the street names Australind, Saladin, Rob Roy, Otway are all named after steamships,  the names of the different trees, we saw lots of different types of birds hanging out around the lake which used to be a swamp and still kinda is, we didn't see any mushrooms but we did see the interesting gate!

palm trees...obvi....

the black swan is the national Australian bird...

interesting flowers...

colorful birds....

That night was Sets on the Beach - a concert I had seen a poster for. I thought it was just a night thing but apparently it was an all day beach event with different bands playing throughout. So, we missed the entrance which was ok because you would've wanted to pay for the entire day, but we were able to go around the front of the concert, to the beach, and be as close to the back of the stage as possible - except, free, still the same music, on the beach, with the ocean crashing behind you. Even better. And the reason we were there - to see Whitest Boy Alive. and Boy were they good!!

from the front

from the beach!