Moonee Ponds: there's a lot to miss out on in the suburb that's got it all

Some suburbs have it all. Close proximity to the CBD (seven kilometres), with a well-developed bike path leading commuting cyclists straight there. A river (the Maribyrnong). A huge park (Maribyrnong Park); a glorious park (Queens Park – it even has a fountain), and an Australian bush-style park (Clarinda). Yes, hello possums, it’s Moonee Ponds.

It is a public transport hub, with trains, trams and a large bus terminal. Add a substantial shopping centre with a Kmart (have you seen how on-trend their furnishings are lately?) an Aldi, and a delightful old-school shopping strip – Puckle Street – with its large line-up of tidy shops, and you get the idea.

Despite being a main road, Mount Alexander Road isn’t the commercial centre of the suburb. It’s more a confusing set of lanes that usually gets me panicking as I think I’m about to drive my car into the Moonee Ponds junction bus terminal. Shoppers head for the delightfully named Puckle Street. Sydney Puckle owned it back when it was farmland and his father, Reverend Edward Puckle, was the local vicar back in the mid-1850s.

Hipster-ish cafes lurk on the outskirts of the hubbub – Ascot Food Store at 320 Ascot Vale Road took over from a deli just over two years back and lures customers in with pictures of Duck Egg Parfait and Lobster Burgers on its Facebook page. Darling Street Espresso is also out of the way in suburbia, at 146 Athol Street (corner of Darling, of course). You’ll get plenty of flowers on your food at newly-opened churchy Dear Abbey at 32a Gladstone Street, too.

If you can see the direction a suburb’s going by checking out the new tenants coming on board, take a look at these: Puckle Street Wine Shop is moving in to No. 24, “high-end grooming product” retailer Spruce Bar will spruce things up at No. 96 and a yoga studio will open upstairs.

There are some unexpected industries here too: Foxtel’s call centre made its home here in various buildings back in the ’90s (I spent many uni nights on the phone calming angry WWF wrestling fans from a dodgy Moonee Ponds basement), before its own purpose-built building at 1-21 Dean Street was completed in 2004.

Head into the residential area and you’ll be laughing at the suburb’s median house price of $1.06 million. Very little that you see on, say, Ardmillan Road, would cost that little. This is the “exclusive private school” area of the Ponds, where tall palm trees and turrets pierce the skyline. Even if it’s out of your price range, the street’s worth a walk-by. Some houses here even have their own fountains.

Of course, Moonee Ponds isn’t all shingle and slate roofs: it’s long been a centre of development. Apartment blocks from the 1970s line even the most salubrious of streets, and there are plenty of new apartments for sale, and in the pipeline, too.

One project that’s been long discussed is the development of Moonee Valley Racecourse. Initially 2500 dwellings were proposed, reaching a maximum height of 68 metres. It’s all still up in the air, with the local council wanting a maximum of 1000 dwellings on the site. Meanwhile, a developer’s building the 11-level Mo. Po. at 333 Ascot Vale Road. Sounds a lot like FOMO. And, yes, there’s a lot to miss out on here.

Five things you didn’t know about Moonee Ponds

• Everage Street was named after Dame Edna Everage, Moonee Ponds’ most famous resident. Her character came to life in 1955 when she spruiked her Moonee Ponds home as a billet for the 1956 Olympic Games with its “burgundy wall-to-wall carpets, lamington cakes and reindeers frosted on glass dining-room doors.”
• Sims Sports, at 61 Puckle Street, has been around since 1935 (did runners even exist then?)
• The Cox Plate will be held at Moonee Valley Racecourse on October 22 this year, and Winx – last year’s winner – is in with a chance again this year.
• As well as a fountain, Queens Park is home to Queens Park Swimming Pool – an outdoor 50-metre swimming pool. There’s a 20-metre junior pool, too. Both open in November for summer.
• Athletes might like to give the Moonee Valley Athletics Centre’s Olympic standard eight-lane track a run for its money. It’s on Corio Street.