YETI Queenscliff

About Queenscliff, VIC

Queenscliff is a small town on the Bellarine Peninsula in southern Victoria, Australia, south of Swan Bay at the entrance to Port Phillip. It is the administrative centre for the Borough of Queenscliffe. At the 2016 census, Queenscliff had a population of 1,315.Queenscliff is a seaside resort now known for its Victorian era heritage and tourist industry and as one of the endpoints of the Searoad ferry to Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula.== History == Prior to European settlement, it was inhabited by the Bengalat Bulag clan of the Wautharong tribe, members of the Kulin nation. European explorers first arrived in 1802, Lieutenant John Murray in January and Captain Matthew Flinders in April. The first European settler in the area was convict escapee William Buckley between 1803 and 1835, who briefly lived in a cave with local Aborigines at Point Lonsdale, above which the lighthouse was later built. Permanent European settlement began in 1836 when squatters arrived. Shortland's Bluff was named in honour of Lieutenant John Shortland, who assisted in the surveying of Port Phillip. Land sales began in 1853, the same year the name was changed to Queenscliff by Lieutenant Charles La Trobe, in honour of Queen Victoria.The Post Office opened on 1 May 1853 as Shortland's Bluff and was renamed Queenscliff in 1854.Originally a fishing village, Queenscliff soon became an important cargo port, servicing steamships trading in Port Philip. A shipping pilot service was established in 1841 to lead boats through the treacherous Rip, and its two lighthouses, the High and Low Lights, were constructed in 1862–63.