8 May 2019
Visitors to Melbourne would tend to include a visit to Brighton Beach in their itinerary. Most would come to see the iconic and colourful wooden beach huts, or “bathing boxes” lining the beach. Not commonly seen in other countries, the colourful boxes make quite nice travel photos.
Brighton Beach Bathing Boxes.
Although we could visit Brighton Beach by rental car on our way to Philip Island later in our trip, I decided to use public transport as I had read that car parking spaces at the beach are limited and could be a problem.
Getting to Brighton Beach by public transport was easy. A 20-minutes direct train ride on the Sandringham Line from Flinders Street Station to Middle Brighton Station and followed by a well signposted, 500 metres stroll to the beach.
The only difficulty we faced was crossing the highway (State Route 33) that ran parallel to the beach. We did not spot any pedestrian crossing along this highway. So crossing the highway with vehicles that came at fast speed was a little daunting. We had to be patient and wait for a long break in the vehicular traffic.
It was sunny but windy when we arrived at the beach. In summer, Brighton Beach would probably be more crowded with swimmers, surfers and sun-worshippers. There is no one swimming at the beach on this windy autumn day.
Instead, we found many tourists enjoying a stroll along the beach and posing for photos in front of the multi-coloured wooden huts. We did likewise.
I did not count the bathing boxes but I have read that there are 82 of them.
The only one that was being used. The owner enjoying his expensive property on Brighton Beach.
This hut is one of the prettiest and most photographed.
Our next destination was St Kilda Beach. Although we enjoyed hiking and St Kilda was about 7 km away, we decided to take the public bus instead. The bus is not so frequent, so it was great that we could get the schedule and location of the bus stop from Google map.
We hurried to the bus stop as indicated. We made it on time but the bus was late!
The bus journey took about 35 minutes, as the bus wound its way through residential area. It was a pleasant ride. A chance to see the Melbourne’s suburban landscape and seeing school kids making their way back home from school.
We alighted at the Acland Street bus stop in St Kilda at about 4 PM. There are many eateries along Acland Street although most would only open later at 5 PM for dinner service. La Roche was opened and served us a delicious pizza. Service from the staff at this restaurant was good too.
It was close to 5 PM when we strolled down Acland Street towards St Kilda Beach. The sun sets early during this time of year.
We passed Luna Park Melbourne, an amusement park known for its roller coaster and giant, ornate carousel but it was closed. That was not a problem as we had no intention to spend time at the amusement park.
To get to the St Kilda beach and pier, we had to cross a highway. This was State Route 33 that continued all the way to Brighton Beach. Thankfully, there was a signalised pedestrian crossing at St Kilda Beach.
We arrived at St Kilda Pier, just as the sun sets in the horizontal. It was windy and chilly on the pier but we were well prepared for the weather.
On St Kilda Pier as the sun sets.
Many people were heading to the end of the pier. The breakwater extending from St Kilda pier is home to a small colony of 1,400 little fairy penguins. These are the same species of penguins that people would see at the famed Penguin Parade on Phillip Island.
One of the “early bird” that was returning to its home in the rocks.
Like the penguins on Phillip Island, these penguins come in after sunset, back to their home on the rocks in the breakwater.
Despite the cold wind that blew, there was a decent crowd on the breakwater and wooden boardwalk that are specially constructed to facilitate the wild penguin viewing.
Crowd on the breakwater waiting for the little penguins to emerge from the crashing waves below.
Calm sea and views of the marina and Melbourne city on the other side of the breakwater.
On-lookers craned their necks and gasped in delight when the first penguins emerged from the waves. Photographers snapped away as the little penguins poised on the sharp rocks, flapping their little flippers to dry themselves.
Fairy penguin merging from the waves at the breakwater on St Kilda Pier.
As the sky gets darker, more penguins began to pop out from the crashing waves onto the breakwater. By now, it was quite difficult to photograph these birds due to low light conditions.
Note: Photographers are NOT to use flash as the eyes of the wild birds are very sensitive and would be injured by the flashlight.
It was good to see some local volunteers mingling with the crowd, providing information and answering questions. They used red light touches to illuminate the penguins.
There were quite a lot of penguins spotted on this night. I had a great time watching and photographing them. Not to mention, listening to their noisy squabbles too.
My original plan was to have dinner at St Kilda after the penguin watching. We changed our mind and decided to take the No. 96 tram back to Melbourne city centre for a bowl of hot steaming ramen at Hakata Gensuke Ramen, located at 168 Russell Street.
This is one of the highly recommended places for excellent Japanese Ramen in Melbourne. There is always a queue in front of the store and no wonder.
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