Brighton's beachside carpark is packed. There are buses heading in, dodging the tourists watching their iPads as they swagger all over the bike path.
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They're here for the Brighton bathing boxes, some 13 kilometres south of the CBD. They're a surprising tourist attraction, really, especially if you grew up in Melbourne. For us locals, they're part and parcel of Melbourne's beach life.
They're also a real estate life goal if you've got $330,000 to spare on something you can't live in.
But did you know that they're not the only bathing boxes in the village? Yes, head 18 kilometres Frankston-way and you'll find another "B" suburb with bathing boxes by the bay. Bonbeach.
I'm thinking its name must come from the French word for good, and beach, well, is beach. It seems superfluous to name the beach in this suburb "Bonbeach Beach" but someone did.
Head down a side street off sluggish Nepean Highway and you might spot the aforementioned boxes. Admittedly, Bonbeach isn't bustling with them.
The City of Kingston has 190 boatsheds and bathing boxes on its foreshore reserves (from Charman Road, Mentone, all the way down to Carrum), with Bonbeach featuring just a dozen of those.
There's a handful of asbestos-roofed boxes off Harding Ave, and a tad more down The Glade. Three or four hide in the bushes further south, where the land meets Patterson River - one of the suburb's boundaries.
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To be honest, unlike Brighton, Bonbeach looks like it's battling. Houses on big blocks are being demolished for the usual townhouses, or renovated with fancy decking, paint jobs and wide driveways to look as display home-like as possible.
It's flat geographically and flat demographically: English, Australian, Irish and Scottish came out tops in terms of the ancestry of the 6416 people living there in the 2016 Census.
It's home to a caravan park - though Chelsea Holiday Park sits so far in the suburban landscape that it's more "holiday in the 'burbs" than beach holiday.
It could be a winner if you like horses, because it's right next to Chelsea Pony Club. Still, there will be no traipsing by foot from the Holiday Park to the foreshore with beach paraphernalia and the kids in tow - it's ages away.
Visit Bonbeach and you'll notice that the community is united in one thing: opposing Skyrail. The plan was to build an elevated sky rail to replace the existing level crossings on the Frankston Line.
But it looks like the protest posters, which still feature on many front fences, worked. Skyrail won't be happening here. A look at the state government's "Your Level Crossing" website proves it.
"We are removing the Station Street/Bondi Road level crossing in Bonbeach by lowering the rail line into a trench, building a new Bondi Road bridge at the current road level and building a new train station." It's in bold on the website, so it must be true. (And, pending an environmental effects statement, it is happening.)
A new train station to replace the existing one might make Bonbeach a more prosperous place. The whole Frankston train line seems to be growing up: Southland, on the line Melbourne-way, has its own station as of a few weeks ago, and many stations along the Frankston line are glistening with new. Except Bonbeach.
The original one is right opposite the little local shopping strip, which is (warning: understatement of the year) not the most happening place.
Let's see what happens when the level crossing is removed. Maybe it will actually put the "good" into Bonbeach.
A post shared by SUP -Surf - Dolphin Whisperer (@frankston_by_the_bay) on Dec 3, 2017 at 12:57pm PST
Five things you didn't know about Bonbeach
- The Patterson River Country Club takes up a fair whack of Bonbeach's land.
- The Patterson River, which borders Bonbeach close to the beach, is home to the National Water Sports Centre (up river).
- Bathing boxes in Bonbeach sometimes come up for sale: 1490 Boat Shed, Bonbeach "A true piece of Australiana" with power sold for $172,500 in August 2016. You have to be a ratepayer to buy one (plus pay rates on it - between $700 and $800 per year.)
- Bonbeach is only 2.8 kilometres square in size.
- Street names in Bonbeach include Royal Road, Irish Court, Scotch Parade, Matilda Way and Banjo Circuit - matching its demography perfectly.