A pictorial outline of the history of Port Melbourne, a land inhabited for over 20,000 years by the Aboriginal people of the Kulin Nation. They lived here through the final centuries of the ice age. In more recent times they observed the flooding of the great plain that we know as Port Phillip Bay.
The first group of white men visited here in 1802 when Charles Grimes was one of an exploration party who explored the northern end of Port Phillip Bay. Shortly afterwards the escaped convict William Buckley crossed the Lagoon and the Yarra River on his long walk from Sorrento to Corio Bay.
Click on an image below to continue to explore Port Melbourne decade by decade.