Living Local: A Kensington Reflection

I have spent a lifetime travelling to the far-flung corners of the globe – writing guidebooks for Lonely Planet, writing stories for the New York Times, among others. Recent writing projects have taken me to Africa, the Arctic and the Outback, and each time the job was the same: take readers to places they’d never been or may never have thought of going, then convince them why they should go.

I live in West Melbourne, the next suburb over from Kensington, and when I was asked to work on the Local Kensington project, I couldn’t believe my luck. Not only would it all be familiar to me, but instead of getting on a plane for 24 hours to start work, I could walk there in 15 minutes. I wouldn’t have to learn a foreign language to make myself understood. And besides, I already knew many of its corners: my daughter plays footy down on JJ Holland Reserve, and I’ve long been a regular at La Tortilleria. 

But I wasn’t prepared for one important consequence of walking the streets of Kensington and speaking with its people: I came to realise how little I had known. Kensington felt like a closely held secret, the best version of some half-imagined, half-forgotten home.

If there was one thing that – over and again – left a deep impression upon me, it was Kensington’s sense of community. Everyone belonged, whether they’d lived here a year or all their lives. It was thoroughly open at the edges, but committed and welcoming at the core.

There were so many moments of revelation. Usually they came in the quirky details that emerged from locals’ stories. It was Millie telling me about the impromptu ukelele band in the park outside the station, or the 3031 Schnauzer Gang; when she told me that she got married in a park and then went to celebrate with friends in the pub, it just seemed so very Kensington. 

Rebecca (Bec) and Karla introduced me to multicultural Kensington, the sense that it didn’t really matter where you came from; I only had to spend a morning at Fruits of Passion Café to see the diversity that comes so naturally to Kensington. Or an afternoon at Neighbourhood House watching one of the many classes build connections between people. Bec has lived here all her life: I envied her that.

I could understand, too, Frankie‘s sense of homecoming as she drove beneath the honour guard of oak trees along Epsom Road. I also learned from her how those who yearn for sustainable living feel right at home here. And when looking to the future, Jack taught me how architecture can define and uplift a place, how the emerging lifestyle hub driven by Local Kensington and other developments is writing a new chapter in the neighbourhood’s story.

Kensington is, I learned again, both a wonderful base for exploring the city – everything is so close and convenient – and a destination-suburb in its own right. Since completing the project, I have begun to explore Kensington’s restaurants and bakeries and drinking holes that I never knew existed. All the while, I kept wondering to myself: why is Kensington so little known? After all, it has many of the better personality traits of Northcote and North Melbourne, Fitzroy and Albert Park, but remains without the crowds of any of them. It is also a country town and hip, niche neighbourhood beloved by young professionals all in one, not to mention a multicultural pocket of diversity and a bastion of old Melbourne traditions.

Over time, I realised that no-one comes here without a reason; you don’t pass through here on your way elsewhere. Once you find that reason, many are inclined to stay and add their own voice to Kensington’s story. And without realising when it happened, I understood that I, too, had fallen in love with this wonderful place.