Hi were going to mandurah on the 26th from birmingham for 6 weeks until the 30th May!

Were staying with some friends, we have booked a car rental to 16 days of the stay.

Myalup we will be staying there for about a week near bunbury.

I have opened another thread in this same forum where im after some valuable information before we leave sunday morning id be gratefull if you could navigate to that forum titled Help Needed Urgent Please Any pointers for our stay would also be welcomed we have a 7 year old daughter, and we will try anything!

thanks in advance

Jafitz
Although I am unable to help with your query over duty free, I can recommend a couple of places in the Perth area that your daughter may appreciate. We stayed in Perth in December 2008 and visited the Aquarium of Western Australia at Hillary's Harbour, about 30 minutes north of Perth. Fantasic day out, they have a rock pool area where you can stroke the fish and get your hands wet! Another place we really enjoyed, which is slightly more off the beaten track and not really very touristy is the Cohunu Park Project in Bunbury, about 30 minutes south of Perth. This is a koala project centre, and when we went there it was only just opened, so we got a reduced entry price! Here you can hold koalas and have your photo taken with them and they allow you into the pens with certain animals to feed them! We hand fed wallabies and kangaroos and you can stay in there and pet them as long as you like, there were also a couple of emus running around in the pen, but they were very scared of us and wouldn't come near. They also have a great aviary there and the birds all talk to you! It is very reasonably priced, we paid $10 each as a reduced price, but standard price is $15 for adults and $5 for children aged 4-14. Photos with koalas were an extra $20 per person. Hope you have a fantastic trip, I am very very jealous as we loved it there! In fact we are going back at the end of this year on a working visa as we loved it so much! Beautiful beautiful place, you will have an absolute ball!

thanks for your help we have printed off your post and will contemplate doing all the things you suggest.

We have 5 weeks to do the whole of perth we have accomadation with friends and around £4k spending money,
What sort of money will that exchange to in OZ as i went to the exchange in thomsons today and they only offered 1.94 to the gbp.. do you think £4k will be enough for a family of 3, 2 adults 1 child 7 years old. we are not heavy drinkers.

I would think so. I spent 5 weeks in Perth in Dec/Jan living with my Brother. Over all I thought the costs were less than here whilst shopping.
You can eat out in inexpensive restaurants and a lot of Restaurants there have BYO and wine is cheaper to buy than in the UK. That said if you are drinking OZ wine and why would one want to drink anything else?
You can travel on the train for less than here. We travelled from Joondalup to the City Centerer 2 adults 2 kids for either $8 or maybe $11 return. Not sure about Perth but other cities have free city buses Melbourne and Sydney to get around.
Also if you visit Parks etc it is possible to barbecue for free if you really want to keep cost down.

Have a great time it is a great City and one I have now visited on 6 occasions.

Sue