The northern section of the bay, near the heads, contains extensive sand banks, that are uncovered at low tide. The bay area is about 1,900 sq km. It is about 58 km from north to south and 65 km from east to west at its widest points. Unlike most bays it has a narrow entrance. There are high tidal velocities at the entrance. It is deepest at the entrance, reaching about 100m, however most of the bay is fairly shallow with depths usually below 20m. The coastline is about 250 km long from Point Lonsdale to Point Nepean which are on opposite sides of the entrance which is about 3km wide.
The aboriginal people lived in the area now the base of the bay from 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Port Phillip region there were five aboriginal language groups, together known as the Kulin nation, totalling about 10,000 at the time of the Europeans’ arrival.
The first British to enter the bay were the crew of HMS Lady Nelson, captained by Lieutenant Murray. Murray sent his first mate, Mr Bowen, with a small crew of five to examine Port Phillip Bay. The launch returned and the first mate reported that he had found an entrance to the harbour. He saw no aborigines but did see their huts. Murray arrived here on February 15th, 1802. He named a high mountain in the South East Arthur’s seat, and a group of islands where swans were plentiful, which he named Swan Isles
He named the bay, port king, after governor king of New South Wales. King renamed it Port Phillip, after the first governor of New South Wales.
On April 27th 1802, captain Matthew Flinders of the royal navy entered Port Phillip Bay thinking that he was the first British person to discover it, unaware that Murray had been there 10 weeks earlier. Flinders named indented head where he met some aborigines with whom he exchanged presents.
In early 1802 Governor King sent Charles Grimes, to walk around and survey the bay; on February 2nd he discovered the Yarra river. In late 1803 colonel Collins was sent out from England to make a convict settlement at Sullivan Bay, near Sorrento. The convicts were 367 males, 17 with their wives, plus 7 children, one of whom, John Fawkner was a co-founder of Melbourne.
William Buckley escaped and lived with the aborigines for several years. They took him in, tolerated his oddness and gave him a wife. Buckley lived with them for 32 years and the arrival of Batman’s party Indented Head in June 1835 attracted Buckley’s interest and wakened in him a desire to re-enter European society.
John Batman, who had been a settler in Tasmania in 1835, bought from eight aboriginal chiefs 600,000 acres of Melbourne for some blankets, knives, looking glasses, tomahawks, beads, scissors, flour and other objects.
On the 15th August, 1835, a group of people including John Fawkner, arrived at Port Phillip Bay. They shortly afterwards settled in the Melbourne area. In 1838 the town of Geelong was proclaimed. In 1906, G.H. Rogers, then head teacher of Dromana state school, wrote to Gordon McCrae and asked him to give him an account of those days. McCrae replied in two letters, including a detailed description of the animals. He said: “my father took up Arthur’s seat …. About 1844, I arrived there …. With my brothers.”
Of aborigines he said “there was a tolerably large tribe of natives on the run, and we had as many as 200 at a time camped in our paddocks. They were a mild, inoffensive people, largely a fishing tribe, and seemed to enjoy a sense of security when within the posts and rails far larger than that in the open. We could trust them with guns or arms of any kind and found them honest and most useful about the place in aid of other people. The young fellows made excellent stock riders. Some of the women washed well and the men in several instances shot for the pot and hunted and killed kangaroos for us with our dogs.
