Portland

Sister cities

• Suzhou

History

The Gunditjmara, an Aboriginal Australian people, are the traditional owners of much of south-west Victoria, including what is now Portland, having lived there for thousands of years. They are today renowned for their early aquaculture development at nearby Lake Condah. Physical remains such as the weirs and fish traps are to be found in the Budj Bim heritage areas. The Gunditjmara were a settled people, living in small circular weather-proof stone huts about high, grouped as villages, often around eel traps and aquaculture ponds. On just one hectare of Allambie Farm, archaeologists have discovered the remains of 160 house sites. Portland was named in 1800 by the British navigator James Grant, who sailed in the Lady Nelson along the Victorian coast. "I also distinguished the Bay by the name of Portland Bay, in honour of His Grace the Duke of Portland", wrote Grant. The bay, the only deep sea port between Adelaide and Melbourne, offers a sheltered anchorage against the often wild weather of Bass Strait. By the early 19th century, whalers and sealers were working the treacherous waters of Bass Strait, and Portland Bay provided good shelter and fresh water, which enabled them to establish the first white settlement in the area. Whaling captain William Dutton is known to have been resident in the Portland Bay area when the Henty clan arrived, and is said to have provided seed potatoes for the Henty garden. The Convincing Ground massacre, in which 20 native owners of the land were massacred by whalers, occurred in Portland Bay in 1833 or 1834, following a dispute about a beached whale between whalers and the Kilcarer gundidj clan of the Gunditjmara people. In 1834, the year before Melbourne was founded, Edward Henty and his family, who had migrated from England to…

Most-observed species

• Australian Magpie

  Gymnorhina tibicen (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  1,191
• Superb Fairywren

  Malurus cyaneus (Ellis, 1782) · Aves
  1,141
• Silver Gull

  Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae (Stephens, 1826) · Aves
  945
• Welcome Swallow

  Hirundo neoxena Gould, 1842 · Aves
  889
• New Holland Honeyeater

  Phylidonyris novaehollandiae (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  849
• Australasian Gannet

  Morus serrator (G.R.Gray, 1843) · Aves
  819
• Little Raven

  Corvus mellori Mathews, 1912 · Aves
  768
• Red Wattlebird

  Anthochaera carunculata (Shaw, 1790) · Aves
  672

Most recent

• M 3.5 — 2005-06-30
  59 km S of Port Fairy, Australia
• M 3.6 — 2002-01-05
  44 km S of Moorak, Australia