Beaumaris, Melbourne

I don’t know a lot about the Melbourne suburb of Beaumaris. I just know I arrived here today, keen to explore. It was a two hour drive from Tylden, where I live, following eight notebook pages’ of instructions – a mental juggle, making sure I was in the right lane to take the right exit off the right freeway at the right time. It makes driving in New Zealand seem tame.

This afternoon I went walking around nearby streets. I was keen to check out the area – its houses, its shopping areas, its transport but I got side-tracked by the flora and fauna – specifically, the eucalypts. It’s so lovely to see all the suburban streets planted (mostly) with Australian native trees and plants – and just for the record, I see I took 27 photos of gum tree bark. One never knows I suppose. They could be just what I’m looking for one of these days.

 

Beaumaris, I’ve since read, is an affluent suburb 20 kilometres south-east of Melbourne’s central business district. It’s the suburb that fronts the waters of Port Phillip between Mentone and Black Rock Village. And that’s about all I know at this stage. The housing seems to be mixed stock – everything from old villas to swathes of 50s-60s housing, to the brand new contemporary – and further towards Black Rock and beyond (on the way to St Kilda), huge mansions hang on the slopes above the water.

The average mortgage monthly mortgage payment is AUD$2,383 compared to the Australian national average of AUD$1,800 or so and in many cases, you’d have to ask yourself, “is it really worth it?”

I see I have a café around the corner – a couple in fact. Very handy. The little cluster of shops on Charman Road also includes a coin-operated laundrette, a pet-grooming facility, real estate agents (naturally), a podiatry provider, dentist, the Happy Milk Bar, a florist, a bottle store, a takeaway pizza place, two Vietnamese restaurants and a choice of five hair salons. Most of my immediate needs seem to be covered.

There are flowering gums everywhere, brilliant, scented bursts of wattle yellow, exquisite magnolia, flurries of suburban lavender and – my favourites, whole streets lined with huge ‘paper bark gums’ (bound to be the wrong name) with their thick, cushiony white bark flaking off in impressive drifts.

I’m back home now and there are at least three honey-eaters coming and going, collecting nectar from the grevillea bushes. They have a beautiful call. Otherwise, all I can hear is pigeons, an occasional magpie, a car or six and the rhythmic tick, tick tick of the big grandfather clock. I like it a lot.