12 Facts About Port Phillip

Port Phillip or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria, Australia.

Today, Port Phillip is the most densely populated catchment in Australia with an estimated 4.

Port Phillip formed between the end of the last Ice Age around 8000 BCE and around 6000 BCE, when the sea-level rose to drown the vast river plains, wetlands and lakes at what was then the lower reaches of the Yarra River.

Port Phillip was the first to see, and crudely chart, the south coast from Cape Banks in South Australia to Wilsons Promontory in Victoria.

Port Phillip was then left mostly undisturbed until 1835, when settlers from Tasmania led by John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner established Melbourne on the lower reaches of the Yarra.

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Port Phillip continues to be extensively used for recreational pursuits such as swimming, cycling, boating, and fishing.

Port Phillip contains 3 Marine Sanctuaries managed by Parks Victoria to protect and conserve the bay's biodiversity, ecological processes and the natural and heritage features.

Port Phillip's subject was his earliest recollections of an idyllic boyhood spent at Arthur's Seat Run, location of the historic McCrae Homestead on the southern shore of the bay, part of the Mornington Peninsula.

In 2004 the Victorian Government launched the Port Phillip Channel Deepening Project to deepen the existing shipping channels and the lower Yarra to accommodate deeper draft vessels.

Port Phillip is home to a number of marinas, including large marinas at St Kilda, Brighton and Geelong.

Port Phillip is known as a temperate water scuba diving destination.

Boat diving in Port Phillip provides access to a remarkable variety of diving environments including wrecks, reefs, drift dives, scallop dives, seal dives and wall dives.