Jono and Liz have lived in St Leonards for almost two years. It is a place they are happy to call home. Which is quite something when you consider they have travelled extensively throughout the world and Australia and came from the beautiful seaside suburb of Parkdale, an area they had both grown up in, on the other side of the bay.
The catalyst for change was covid, something we hear quite often, and often in quite unexpected ways. Jono and Liz headed off in their caravan on a trip north intending to be away for a couple of months, when border closures meant they couldn’t return home in time and their trip would last much longer. Liz said Jono was the most relaxed she had ever seen him, and suggested they look at living in a country town when they returned. With a daughter living in Angelsea, the idea of being close but not too close led to a drive down the Bellarine Highway. Liz declared ‘I could live here’.
Their house near the beach in Parkdale, and the place where they had raised their two children had gradually lost its seaside serenity. Multi-storey apartment blocks were going up around them, along with an overhead rail line and the streets were jammed with giant 4WDs doing the school pick up and drop off. They came to the Belllarine for a weekend and found what they were looking for – much to their surprise – in a new estate in St Leonards. It was their Seachange moment. They discovered there’s something very appealing about being in a two year old house, coming from a sixty year old house, in constant need of maintenance and draft detection. Both Jono and Liz had already retired and they had much more interesting things to do than look after an old house.
Liz, a retired bookkeeper and Jono a retired environmental scientist with a water authority, met at Beaumaris High. They recently celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary. Their many interests have inspired – and been inspired by – their travels and active embrace of community life in St Leonards.
When the children were still in primary school, they packed up the Toyota and travelled throughout Western Australia, for their first big trip, discovering a love of fossicking and hot springs. They’ve sailed the Gippsland Lakes and Greek Islands and took up backpacking in their 50s. Hiking through Turkey and its magnificent ruins was a particular highlight. All this with increasingly sophisticated cameras hung around their necks. It is not difficult to imagine this is Liz and Jono in their element.
With the help of Liz’s father, also a keen photographer, they set up a dark room at home. They have continuously traded up in cameras – only ever owning one each at a time, they help each other to learn new things, do courses together and encourage each other in competitions, of which many a prize has been won. ‘It gets competitive’ they admit, all in good humour of course. They are both members of the Bellarine Camera Club in Drysdale and St Leonards Camera Club, where Jon is the President and Liz the Treasurer. Liz is also a member and treasurer of the Bellarine Women’s Workshop. Being a book-keeper is certainly a skill in much demand for local community groups as Liz had found. And, they are both into bike-riding, riding regularly with the Port Pedallers. And in between, there is Jack the Jack Russell who must be entertained, walks along the beach, woodwork for Jono and Mosaics for Liz.
Soon they will head off with the St Leonards Garden Club on a trip to Tasmania. Through their interests, joining groups and walking along the beach with the dog, they’ve made some ‘great new friends’ and noticed the friendliness of the ‘locals’ who will always stop to say hello and have a chat.
Liz and Jono have embraced the notion of community being the one we create – proving that we don’t always have to have been somewhere for generations to feel we are a part of that community.
Humans in St Leonards 