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My suburb is possibly not a suburb at all. It’s a village, or a semi-rural suburb, depending on who you ask. A town that is still resisting becoming a suburb of Melbourne, even as the city’s edge creeps closer.
Right out on the fringe of Melbourne, Somerville is about an hour and a half by car, and at least as long by train, if you care to trust the V-line. We are surrounded by green acreage and hobby farms, with Port Phillip Bay on one side and Western Port on the other.
It’s a quiet town. Some might say Somerville is dead boring, and they do. But the way we see it, the Mornington Peninsula is the playground, and Somerville is at the heart of it.
We never expected to leave NSW. We’d lived for decades in the flood capital of the world – Lismore – and enjoyed the scenic mountains, rainforests and beaches.
But 15 years ago, we decided to move to Melbourne, to be closer to three of our five adult children who had all settled here, with the other two up in unpleasantly humid South East Queensland.
We had for many years taken an annual road trip down to Melbourne to visit family – long trips down the Pacific Highway and the excruciatingly dull Hume Highway with five kids, and occasionally pets, for the Christmas holidays. We stayed at every single motel and patronised every RSL and ex-services club between Lismore and Melbourne, or at least it felt like it.
After Christmas with family in Deepdene and Nunawading, we would often take a holiday by the beach at McCrae. So when it came to choosing a new home in Melbourne, we gravitated back to the Mornington Peninsula, and eventually Somerville. It reminded us of home. The paddocks, the rambling country roads, the promise of the sea only minutes away.
Head 10 minutes one way, and you are at calm beaches like Seaford or Mornington. Drive a little further, and you reach the beautiful stretch of coastline from Mount Eliza to Dromana. Head to the south and you are winding toward surf at Point Leo. And wherever you turn, there is another craft brewery or winery offering tastings, long lunches and live music. Rural but never remote. Exactly what we had been looking for since leaving the north coast.
The railway first arrived in Somerville in 1889, when it was an orchard town, primarily providing apples, pears and nursery stock. To celebrate that heritage, in the centre of town we have a landmark “big apple”, though that probably overstates its scale.
These days, Somerville is more of a chicken town. In the mid-20th century a huge poultry-processing plant operated by Inghams took root just north of the town centre. Drive past at the right time of day, and you’ll experience the delight of the street smelling like chicken nuggets. It’s a small pleasure for us to think that the treats many of our grandchildren seem addicted to, including Ingham’s Dino Nuggets, begin their journey here.
Appropriately enough, Somerville’s biggest local attraction also happens to feature dinosaurs. Dinosaur World is a quirky roadside stop at a Christmas tree farm where towering dinosaur models roam among the trees – the owners having cleverly found a way to delight children and draw visitors all year round.
As a retired architect, I believe the best measure of a town is how it feels on foot, and Somerville passed the test easily. You can stroll to the train station, the shops, the bakery, grab a coffee or wander down to the pub, the Somerville Hotel. It opened on New Year’s Day 1904, and was refurbished with care just a few years ago.
Visitors to our village won’t be able to miss the diabolical Somerville double roundabout, arguably one the five worst intersections in Melbourne, with its five entries all at different angles. Traffic is bad on weekday afternoons, but the consolation is that when you live in Somerville you never have too far to travel.
The village itself has a Peninsula ease to it. Families walking dogs, horses grazing on the outskirts, a couple of food trucks, kids riding bikes toward the sporting fields. And just beyond the town centre the density fades away to open fields and larger houses on acreage. You still get that wide sky that we always loved in the Northern Rivers, and being in the centre of the peninsula means the night sky is always clear and full of stars and Starlink satellites whizzing overhead.
What really brings people here is the space. That feeling of being able to stretch out without leaving behind the benefits of a well-connected town. There is a remarkable mix of different businesses in Somerville, from trades and industrial businesses, gyms and fitness centres, some interesting little cafes, a good selection of restaurants, a distillery and even two craft breweries (although one has recently shifted just down the road to Hastings).
Somerville has an authenticity to it rather than being too flashy or ostentatious like some other nearby parts of the peninsula, like Mt Eliza or Dromana. It’s a town where peninsula locals actually live or people retire to because of the relaxed semi-rural, coastal lifestyle with all the services you’ll ever need just minutes away. In the mornings you’ll see a convoy of tradies in their utes as they head off.
Some people want a sea change and some people want a tree change. For us, in Somerville we didn’t have to choose one over the other. Fresh air and beaches; paddocks and wineries. Quiet mornings and lively weekends.
Somerville has become our unexpected second chapter. A place where the countryside rolls into the coastline. We thought we left our ideal lifestyle behind in NSW. Turns out it was waiting for us.
Jim Klages is a retired architect.
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