LIFE ON THE WATERFRONT
Around 16,000 years ago, when sea levels were some 100m lower than they are today, the Yarra River meandered across the middle of a broad plain, picking up tributaries from east and west, before flowing through a deep gorge at the present-day Port Phillip Heads.
At the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, the sea level rose, flooding the plain to form the bay we now call Port Phillip.
ABORIGINAL HERITAGE
These dramatic changes to the landscape would have been witnessed by tribes of the Kulin Aboriginal nation who had inhabited the region for more than 20,000 years up to that time.
The creation of the bay, which they call Nairm, features in their oral histories and Dreamtime stories.
Long before the bay was formed, the Wathaurong, Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung clans hunted and gathered across the grassy plain and reaped the bounty of the freshwater and marine environments.
Almost 600 archaeological sites in the region provide evidence of their activities.
COLONIAL EXPLORATION
In 1802, Lieutenant John Murray sailed HMS Lady Nelson into the bay and named it Port King after the New South Wales Governor, Philip Gidley King.
King renamed it in honour of his predecessor, Arthur Phillip.
After a more detailed exploration by Lieutenant Charles Robbins, King dispatched Captain David Collins with 400 people to stake a claim on the
