Secret Harbour has 2,206 residents born in England, the largest number of any suburb on this list. Nearly one in five people here was born in England, and that is before you count Scotland and Wales.
It is a beach suburb with a golf course through the middle of it, and the single thing that shapes daily life here is that it has no train station.
The One Thing People Get Wrong
People look at the Mandurah line on a map, see that it runs south, and assume Secret Harbour is on it. It is not.
The nearest station is Warnbro, roughly nine kilometres away, and the train from there is just under an hour into Perth. So the commute is a drive to a car park, and then a train.
This is why Secret Harbour and Warnbro attract different people despite being neighbours, and it is worth driving both on a weekday morning before you decide.
What It Is Actually Like
Built from the late nineties onwards around the golf course and the beach. The housing is newer than Rockingham and older than Alkimos, which for most people is the right side of both.
The beach is the point. It is a surf beach rather than a swimming beach, and the surf club is a genuine centre of the suburb rather than a building people drive past.
The median age is 34 and the average household has 3.1 people, which tells you most of what you need to know: this is families with children at home.
Schools
There are primary schools within the suburb, and the secondary options are in the surrounding area rather than in Secret Harbour itself, which is the usual arrangement this far south.
Confirm catchments with the Department of Education for the specific address you are considering.
The Australian school year starts in late January and finishes in December. It does not run September to July. If you are arriving mid year your children will be joining part way through, and if you are timing your move around schooling you are aiming at January rather than September.
Being Honest About Secret Harbour
No station, and that is not a small thing. Every trip to Perth starts with a drive, and the Kwinana Freeway northbound at seven in the morning is its own kind of education.
Fifty six kilometres out means you are choosing the beach and the space over being close in, and people who later move nearer the city almost always say the commute was why.
The other side of it is what the numbers show: more people here were born in England than in any other suburb on this list, so whatever you are about to go through, somebody three doors down has already done it.
The Questions We Cannot Answer Here
Mortgages, visas, insurance and shipping come up constantly, and we are not licensed to advise on any of them. What we can do is point you at the firms in our directory who are, and who deal with British and Irish arrivals every week.
Ask Somebody Who Lives There
40,000+ British and Irish people in Perth are in our community, across the group, page and Instagram, and a good number of them live in Secret Harbour. If you want to know whether it suits your family, ask them. It is free to join, and somebody will answer within the hour, usually several somebodies with strong opinions.