With the Easter holidays nearly upon us we're dreaming of escaping to a quiet, humble beach shack surrounded by a garden of tea-trees. Despite being an urban-dwelling nation the modernist-style beach houses that populate the small towns up and down the coast are steeped in nostalgia for many Australians. As author Tim Winton writes in his book, Land's Edge, "In my memory of childhood there is always the smell of bubbling tar, of Pinke Zinke, the briny smell of the sea. It is always summer and I am on Scarborough Beach, blinded by light... There is nowhere else I'd rather be, nothing else I would prefer to be doing."