Portland bluestone-town beach house

This 105 square-metre weatherboard house sits on a level block in Portland, the oldest European settlement in Victoria and the deep-water port anchoring the state's far south-west coast. The house is a 1960s Victorian coastal build — hardwood frame, painted weatherboards, tiled roof, a sunroom on the northern side and a proper hearth for the cool months. Three bedrooms, one renovated bathroom, a separate lounge and a kitchen-dining room open to a paved courtyard. There is a single garage, a garden shed and enough level lawn for a trampoline or a veggie patch. Double glazing has been added to the western windows.

Portland is a genuine working town of about 10,000 people rather than a holiday strip, and that is exactly why prices remain reasonable this close to the Great Ocean Road. There is real employment here — the port, the aluminium smelter, wind-farm servicing, fishing and forestry — which means shops stay open in July and the schools, hospital and services are proper regional standard, not seasonal. Freehold title, standard Victorian conveyancing; foreign buyers need FIRB approval and should factor Victoria's foreign purchaser additional duty.

Nuns Beach is a 450-metre walk down the hill: a crescent of pale sand tucked under limestone cliffs, sheltered from the prevailing south-westerlies and shallow enough for a swim. The bigger, wilder beaches are minutes away — Dutton Way for fishing, Bridgewater Bay for a long surf and sunset walk beneath the blowholes and petrified forest at Cape Bridgewater, and Yellow Rock for solitude. Southern right whales calve at Logans Beach in Warrnambool an hour east; seals haul out on the rocks at Cape Bridgewater year-round; the Great South West Walk starts and finishes in town.

Portland's town centre is a five-minute drive with a strip of restored bluestone and cast-iron heritage buildings. There are two big supermarkets, a Bunnings, a hospital, medical clinics, a cinema, a botanic garden and a genuinely good handful of cafés and restaurants — the Portland Hotel, Bahloo, The Vic — plus fish and chips at the harbour and the Sunday foreshore market. A vintage cable tram runs the length of the foreshore in summer.

Access is easy by regional Australian standards. Portland is a four-hour drive west of Melbourne on sealed highway, an hour from Mount Gambier and its airport with daily flights to Melbourne, and V/Line coaches connect to the Warrnambool train line. Once here you will want a car, though the beach, the harbour and the shops are all walkable from this block.

The trade-off is weather: this is the Southern Ocean, so summers are mild rather than tropical and winters are grey, windy and green. In exchange you get uncrowded coast, working-town prices, and cliff-top scenery that would cost triple three hours east at Lorne.