Mount Eliza, Mornington, Somerville

There’s a reason Mount Eliza, Mornington and Mount Martha have become boom towns: lifestyle and amenities. Sophisticated restaurants and cafes, boutiques and unique retail stores, art galleries and public gardens, wineries and produce stores, and beaches and tracks for winter walking adventures abound.

Mount Eliza started life as a holiday retreat for affluent Melburnians. In 1924, housing boomed with the release of Ranelagh Estate, designed by US architect Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin (the first licensed female architect in the world), best known in Australia for designing Canberra.

The village has many cafes, good restaurants, interesting shops, and day spas, and it’s home to Manyung Gallery and Baluk Arts, an urban Aboriginal community arts centre. Close by is Mount Eliza Regional Park and a quarry walk; Emil Madsen Reserve, with its floodlit skate park; and a historic steam train that runs to Mornington on many Sundays.

The thriving town of Mornington, established in 1854, has a spectacular pier; the region’s main art gallery and several others; a busy racecourse; historic cemetery; botanical rose gardens; and a long, cosmopolitan main street packed with interesting shops, cafes, restaurants, hotels, and the long-running Wednesday street market. Free parking is an asset.

Mount Martha has the famous Balcombe Estuary boardwalk, The Briars conservation park, cafes and restaurants, and of course more of the beautiful beaches that decorate this part of the coast.

Inland are the towns of Moorooduc and Tuerong, offering produce at farmgates, a honey farm, flower and plant farms, wineries and more.

Somerville is another thriving town here and boasts excellent shopping. Most of its public amenities are clustered around the railway station, including Fruit Growers Reserve and Mechanics Institute. Somerville is becoming uber hip with residents and visitors flocking to sample and buy locally roasted coffee and awardwinning whisky and gin. While you are in Somerville, grab some takeaway and head to Fruit Growers Reserve in Jones Rd, where there is plenty to do for all ages.