Today commenced with about an eight kilometre bike ride from Elwood to Brighton Beach along the foreshore and back. Gail and Paul met us at our place on their bikes which were provided by the AirBnB that they had booked in, down the road from us. It was a cool morning at 21c which made for perfect biking temperature.
The purpose of the ride was to find the Brighton Beach Boxes which the cove is well known for. They are also referred to as Bathing Boxes. They do not have any running water or power. They are also individually owned and on top of their purchase price you have to pay $895 fee to the beach committee plus the annual rates.
The last one sold back in 2018 for the unimaginable price of $337,000!!
This particular Beach Box which is further down the coast near Portsea where we were about ten days ago, reached $910,000. No comment can rationalize why you would pay that amount of money to store your surfboard down near the beach.
We dropped off and had a sandwich at a lovely beachside coffee shack and then caught a bus/tram into the city as we were keen on going to the Immigration Museum.
The museum is in the beautiful old Customs House. It was built to be one of Melbourne’s grand buildings. Its grandeur declared that Melbourne was a thriving and wealthy metropolis, linked by trade to Britain and the other major cities of the British Empire.
We then headed back to Elwood for our final meal together which ended unfortunately with Paul realizing he didn’t have his man bag with him. We did some mental back tracking and we thought that we either left it behind on the tram or else at the Immigration Museum. Not the best of ways to finish our time off together. Paul and Gail are heading down the Mornington Pensinsula for a few days to catch up with some other friends so hopefully we can find it before they head down there in the morning.
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