I’m an American, studied abroad in Australia (Murdoch Uni) in Perth/Freemantle for 6 months as an undergrad. I arrived in June, left in November, so I missed most of the hot.
The Perth area gets colder in winter than I’d imagined. I’m from Minnesota (upper midwest in The States; our winters get cold. 0C and colder from December to February), so I know from cold, but I didn’t pack the warmer clothes or blankets that I should have. That said, I was living in the student village, so the flats were simply built and didn’t have heating. Another student building was more recently built - looked rather like townhomes or condos - but didn’t have heating either. I found this strange, but probably because it’s unthinkable for a building to not have central heating in MN. I don’t know whether this is common for people’s regular homes.
Anyhoo, winter was colder than I anticipated - in the tens or teens C, and could often be rainy or drizzly. (And rain + cold is hundreds of times colder than that same cold + snow. Don’t know why, but it’s a universal.) Spring was gorgeous. And it was just starting to get hot when I left, but hadn’t really gotten steaming yet.
In terms of culture, I found Australia to be much like the US, so there wasn’t too much culture shock - it’s rather like heading up to Canada for an American. Very egalatarian, more so than here. Similar mythos and racial experiences: the concept and mythos of “the bush” is roughly analogous to the US’s Old West; and the experience of the native peoples is comparable to American Indians + the civil rights struggle of blacks. (Again, very roughly speaking, and very much from an outsider’s POV. I don’t mean to undercut anyone’s own experiences or history.)
I like to joke that Australia is like Arizona: the whole place says “Go Away,” what with the spiders and snakes and various pointy flora and fauna. But it really is just a joke. While there was a 2m venomous snake living in the student village (supposedly), I never saw it. And while I did see spiders, I never saw one that was dangerous, and they all avoided people anyway. (Shared our living spaces, yes. But up in the corners and away from where we all were.) I did get stung by a bee my second day there, that kind of sucked. Hadn’t been stung for years. There are warnings about jellies and sharks and crocs; heed the warnings and follow the advice of the natives and you’ll be fine.
Because I was coming from Madison, WI, which has a kind of high standard of living anyway, I didn’t really notice it as being especially expensive or cheap. Things (like a burger from McDonald’s or whatever) were marginally more expensive, perhaps. (This was also in 1999, when the US Dollar was stronger. I might find it different now.) I did find that I’d spend $50 AUD in much the same way that I’d spend $20 USD back home (but keep in mind that the exchange rate was different then, maybe $2 AUD = $1 USD? So not as much of a disparity as you’d think.) Wages seemed excellent - even restaurant servers or retail sales associates would earn a decent, living wage. (Here in the States, these jobs make minimum wage, and it’s not a living wage.) Rents were weird, as they were always quoted in $X/week. I’m used to an $Y/month standard, so I’d have to multiply by 4 (but that’s not that big a deal).
Great people, great place. I loved it.