St Kilda

St Kilda was Melbourne's seaside resort in the nineteenth century, declined into a rough inner suburb through the twentieth, and has since gentrified without losing its edges. Luna Park, opened in 1912 and entered through a huge open mouth, still runs the Scenic Railway, a wooden roller coaster from the same year with a brakeman riding on board, claimed as the world's oldest continually operating roller coaster. Acland Street holds a row of central European cake shops from the postwar Jewish migration. At the end of the pier, a colony of little penguins has settled in the breakwater rocks and comes ashore at dusk, watched from a boardwalk with volunteer guides present.

What you actually see

• Luna Park - the 1912 park and its wooden Scenic Railway coaster.
• The pier penguins - little penguins in the breakwater at dusk, free to watch.
• Acland Street cake shops - central European patisseries from the postwar era.
• The foreshore - the beach, palms and bay promenade.

When to go

October to April for the beach and warm evenings; penguins come ashore at dusk year-round, later in summer. Sunday markets run along the Esplanade. Summer weekends are extremely busy on the foreshore.

Honest expectations

The penguin viewing is free and unstructured, so people crowd the boardwalk; flash photography is banned and volunteers enforce it. The beach is not the best in Melbourne and the water quality drops after rain. The area has a visible street-drinking and drug scene at night.

Nearby

Brighton and its bathing boxes lie south; the city centre is fifteen minutes by tram.