My bayside suburb has no shopping strip, cafe, or even a milk bar. That’s how we like it

October 20, 2025 — 7.00pm

Opinion pieces from local writers exploring their suburb’s cliches and realities and how it has changed in the past 20 years.

Picture a quiet pocket of the bay where pelicans drift overhead, footpaths wind alongside the creek past quirky backyard fences, and every second house still sports a Hills Hoist. It’s a place where the city skyline glows across the water, the tide laps at the rocks, and a neighbour might wave simply because that’s just what people do here.

It is the kind of suburb where you can feel the edge of the world and still get to the CBD in 25 minutes on the train. Its beauty isn’t loud or curated. It’s subtle and grounded.

If you blink on the train between Altona and Newport, you might miss Seaholme entirely. And honestly, that suits the residents just fine. Seaholme hums along quietly. Like it knows something you don’t.

I used to live in Altona but discovered Seaholme during drives to the local off-lead dog beach. I found a lovely rental listing and thought, “This is my chance!” Within days of moving in, I was scouting new walking trails and appreciating the trees cared for by residents on the nature strips. I came to realise I was calmer than I had been in years, simply by moving a few kilometres down the road.

Seaholme felt like the part of Melbourne I didn’t know I needed. The part that reminded me of what it’s like to slow down without stopping.

It is not shops or events, or nightlife that give this place its energy. It is rhythm. Mornings with dogs running wild at the beach. Afternoons with kids riding bikes home from school. Evenings when the sun sets over Cherry Lake, just across the road. It’s a place that lives gently.

It is tiny. Most Melburnians have never heard of it, which is remarkable for a bayside suburb. Even people in neighbouring suburbs often assume it is just part of Altona, which surrounds us. But Seaholme, population 2000, is its own place.

When people are alerted to our existence, they assume Seaholme is boring. That it’s a bland little bayside blip filled with boats, dogs, and wind. And they’re not entirely wrong, except they miss the point. What appears to be not much at first glance is actually something special: stillness, space, sanity.

Seaholme is not far from the CBD, but it is the antithesis of inner-city hustle. There are no influencers filming reels in café windows. No fickle pop culture moments, street art tours, or secret speakeasies. What we do have instead is a stretch of beach that could rival any in Melbourne, long and quiet. We have beautifully kept parkland, a breeze that actually smells like the sea, and streets and hidden trails where you can still hear yourself think. There’s a popular six-lane boat ramp, too, so you can cast a line with nothing but sky and stillness around you. Come here at dawn when the snapper are biting and you’ll find a less still version of the suburb – hundreds of boats queuing up to get out on the bay.

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The Bay Trail runs right through Seaholme, linking Altona Beach with the wetlands and stretching from Williamstown to Point Cook. It’s popular with cyclists, dog walkers, and families. On summer weekends, it gets busier, but most weekdays it’s peaceful with only the hum of bikes, casual walkers, and the song of birds overhead.

Altona is Seaholme’s bigger, louder sibling. It has cafes, ice cream shops, surf clubs, and increasingly, traffic. Even in Seaholme, everything seems to be called Altona. Seaholme was established, adjacent to Altona, in 1920, when sales were launched for “Seaholme Estate”. More than 100 years later, we’ve not shaken off Altona. Is it any wonder that people don’t realise Seaholme exists when our facilities are named the Altona Sports Club, Altona Boat Ramp, Altona Yacht Club and Altona Bocce Club. Even our hugely popular dog beach is named after Altona.

Newport to the north-east is greener, older, but with no beach in sight. Williamstown and Williamstown North sit across the water, on the other side of the coastal park and industrial zone. What sets Seaholme apart is its refusal to rush. Little has changed during my time here, while neighbouring suburbs scramble to modernise. There’s no shopping strip, or cafe, not even a milk bar, which is unimaginable in Melbourne. But it has the bay, and an adorable coffee spot just across Millers Road in Altona that draws in all the dog walkers, cyclists, families, and retirees out enjoying the bay. It holds the horizon, commands the sky, and moves at its own pace.

Seaholme does have some inconveniences. Our train station is set in the southern pocket and is relatively infrequent. The shops are limited. But that is part of the trade-off.

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Before I moved in, Seaholme felt like one of the last untouched corners of the west. But even the best-kept secrets eventually get out. Developers have started circling, and old weatherboards are giving way to sleek new builds. You can feel the tension between the character of old Seaholme and the wave of new money arriving to stake a claim.

Still, the heart of Seaholme holds firm. The wetlands are untouched, the dog beach still shifts with the tide, the water turns silver at sunset, and the city skyline remains wide open across the bay. Locals nod as they pass on the coastal path, just as they always have.

In a city full of suburbs trying to be the next big thing, Seaholme is humble. The kind of place that does not need to shout to be noticed by those who see it.

Kat Lodder is a resident of Seaholme with two teenage boys and Bobby the border collie.

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