Willetton

This leafy residential suburb lies about 12km directly south of Perth and roughly the same distance east of Fremantle. Pleasant and decidedly middle-class, Willetton has the busy little Jandakot Airport directly to its south and the Canning River, which feeds into the Swan River to the north-west, to its north.

The Leach Highway makes the trip into Fremantle a doddle for Willetton's residents and it"s not much more trouble for them to reach Perth's CBD via the nearby Kwinana Freeway.

Willetton is also surrounded by golf courses - Melville Glades, Riverton and Whaleback - and the big Murdoch University is within easy striking distance. The university, which sits on 254ha of prime land, was named after Sir Walter Murdoch (1874-1970), a prominent Australian academic and essayist who was Chancellor of the University of Western Australia between 1943 and 1948.

The second university to be established in Western Australia and the 17th in Australia, Murdoch University was constituted on July 25, 1973. In 1975, its inaugural year, the university enrolled 672 undergraduate students, and had six professors. Today, Murdoch offers more than 50 undergraduate programs, has more than 11,000 students and employs 50 professorial staff.