1.5 Holiday Frankston: Parking, Campers and Holidays

Foreshore work continued beyond the 1950s and 1960s with several new structures and constant "improvements" to visitor areas. Sporting clubs were given new facilities along the beachfront (to the dismay of some residents who opposed alienation of land for bowling and tennis clubs). Long Island was a favoured site for such clubhouses with a new tennis club built in 1957.1 Yet many felt that the great days of Frankston as a holiday resort were over. The local paper reported that in 1947, while there were thousands on the beach at New Year, the crowds lacked the "gaiety" of prewar vacationers.2 Ten years earlier the paper had been able to report that Frankston became a new town in holiday season with thousands about the pier and along the shopping streets.3

Many of these visitors came to stay in the motor camp or to camp free from any restriction in the ti-tree scrub. Council constantly sought to regulate these rough camping sites even if it meant driving tourists further down the peninsula. Yet by the end of the 1930s long-stay holidaying in Frankston was clearly declining.

Local reporters often canvassed holiday-makers hoping to identify what aspects of the town would bring visitors back in the following year. Many responses to Frankston began to sound negative by the middle of the 1930s. Two women interviewed asked "why don't they clean up that foul creek" and complained that Frankston needed a nice ballroom. One Ballarat holiday-maker liked Frankston but remarked "we don't want the mosquitoes though ... they swarm into the house as soon as the sun sets ... however it is a good excuse to stay up all night".

Fred from Perth said Frankston needed more dressing sheds and one visitor from Mildura returning after sixteen years thought that "it [Frankston] is practically a new town" though it did not have enough trees, a problem which still lingers.4

Frankston council made some attempt to satisfy these demands. In the 1930s council had put up concrete tables along the foreshore. By the 1950s most of these had begun to fall apart with broken tops.5 Council made several attempts to provide access for cars to the beach but in the 1950s cars were constantly getting stuck in sand and visitors were unable to reach picnic spots. Parking remained an important aspect of foreshore management since revenue from parking was the only source of funds for foreshore improvement.6

In 1953 a deficit prompted the foreshore committee to look for ways to expand parking.7 Land at the foot of Oliver's Hill had already been declared a parking area and this was the spot from which the committee thought they could raise most money.8

15 Frankston foreshore viewed from Oliver's Hill c1935 showing reclamation work on the foreshore and a still dense belt of growth as yet almost untouched by the effects of the car [Rose postcard p.989, Armstrong collection].

The Foreshore Committee had previously faced a cash crisis in trying to deal with demands for maintenance along the beach and since they had no power as a separate body to borrow they had handed power to the council; the Lands Department approved of the foreshore committee acting through the council.9 Some of their improvements and the Shire's work to give better access for motor vehicles upset residents more so in Mt. Eliza than in Frankston. Plans to improve access to Davey's Bay prompted one resident (D. Osborne) to complain of dangers from better access and the clearing work of fire authorities. Osborne felt that "the area should not be desecrated in the process as most of the appeal of this area is the rustic atmosphere that prevails".

Osborne did not want the road extended since "the vast undesirable element" would inundate the essentially private bay.10 Since then Davey's Bay has become more popular but has retained an air of pleasant seclusion which has been lost at Frankston beach with its massive car park and fearsome passing traffic.

Residents and the council could with prudent management, maintain a rustic atmosphere at Davey's Bay but by the 1950s, seclusion and quiet were lost causes at Frankston beach. Visitors to the beach at Frankston still did without public facilities. Those that existed were often run-down, like the dressing sheds, described in 1951 as "a few small outmoded dressing sheds … most times found to be dirty and untidy with papers, discarded garmentry and debris."11 Motor access and conditions in the camping areas of Frankston lay behind most debates about the quality of the foreshore.

The railway initially brought campers to Frankston. The beaches had become increasingly popular with campers once people got access to cars. Long Island had been a favourite camping spot before the First World War. Generally this was rough camping with almost no fixed facilities like water or toilets.12 In 1950 a "gypsy camp" on the Island was closed and its residents prosecuted.13 This gypsy camp was one of the few remnants of a broader camping population who travelled to Frankston in the early twentieth century.14 Tents were set up on Crown Land and in the season during the First World War there were ten to fifteen holiday camps in Frankston paying 5/- camping fee each week.15 As the local policeman reported, Frankston was not dangerously crowded like places more accessible from Melbourne:

we do not get the class of people at Frankston that go to Chelsea and Aspendale because we are outside the suburban radius; ... that has the effect of keeping the undesirable class back.16

Between the wars the shire had set up an official motor camp at Frankston. This motor camp was opened in December 1934 bounded by an extension of Playne St and the Kananook Creek. It had an assembly hall, two kitchens and gas cookers [penny in the slot]. The camp was supposedly regulated to prevent "close" camping and was established within reach of Frankston shopping and town facilities. The basic camp was later shifted to Seaford and camping was regulated by a series of by-laws governing the number of tents on private land and regulations about toilets. By the 1930s the foreshore motor camp filled to overflowing in summer.17

Locals quickly tired of the swarm of motoring campers and in 1939 protests to the Lands Department followed by petrol rationing during the war [which increased usage since Frankston was not a long drive from Melbourne] led to more camping being opened north of the official camp. Campers cut down ti-tree to build shelters or light fires and the camp became derisively known as Chinatown. Eventually complaints led to its closure in April 1944.18

Over the following years many private camp sites were set up on private blocks but tighter council regulation led to the closure of several of these prompting one disgruntled holiday to write:

finding the camp everything that could be desired in cleanliness, orderliness and comfort we booked our sites again for this year. Now we find the camp has been closed by the council. Why should the council be able to say whether or not a man may make an honourable living off his own property? During the war people willingly submitted to all restrictions but where is the cause or need for this.19

Such restrictions ensured that post-war Frankston lost its appeal for many holiday makers. Mr Olsen, a long-term resident who ran a motor garage had pointed out in 1947 that many of the wealthier holiday-makers were driving on down the Peninsula. He claimed that many campers stopped at his garage for supplies and directions and he had to tell them to go on as there was nothing for them in Frankston. All these people were moreover "a splendid type ... with doctors, barristers and other professional men making the majority."20

As more and more holiday-makers got cars, resorts like Frankston, close to the city and becoming suburban, would have been bypassed no matter how many services they provided. Nevertheless, the council attempted to improve its camp and protect camp sites by planting pines and poplars.21 In 1953 amongst the users of the Seaford Motor Camp were the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria Caravan Club.22 In 1957 regular Seaford Motor Park campers petitioned for improvements to the basic amenities of the campsites.23

During the following decade nearby residents complained about the inconvenience from noise and rubbish in the motor camp. Some residents were upset that they had fruit stolen from trees. Numbers seemed to fall off markedly as holiday makers went further afield and sought more sophisticated facilities than those available at the motor camp. By then Frankston was losing money on the camp. The toilet block needed repairs and the camp itself had no hot water. Even long-term residents wanted their surrounds improved and council received a petition from campers who were regular long-term users, one group had been holidaying there for twenty years, two for sixteen years and many for seven years.24

During the 1960s boys on holiday at the Church of England Langwarrin Camp were given permission to swim off Long Island near to McClelland's studio. They evidently behaved better than scouts from Richmond who so disturbed quiet Frankston some years earlier that scouts were banned from Long Island.25 Yet as a place for beachside camping, Frankston no longer could compete with the more rural and less crowded beachside camping areas of Rosebud, Rye and Blairgowrie. The motor car which had brought campers to Frankston between the war was used by visitors increasingly for day trips to Frankston's beaches and pier and not for long-term stays.