Point Lonsdale

Point Lonsdale is a coastal township on the Bellarine Peninsula, near Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia. The town is divided between the Borough of Queenscliffe and the City of Greater Geelong. Point Lonsdale is also one of the headlands which, with Point Nepean, frame The Rip, the entrance to Port Phillip. The headland is dominated by the Point Lonsdale Lighthouse. At the 2006 census, Point Lonsdale had a population of 2,477.

History

The traditional owners of this area are the Wautharong people of the Kulin nation. The escaped convict William Buckley, the first known European to have lived in the area, lived with local Aborigines from 1803 to 1835. A signal station was built in 1854. Permanent European settlement began at Point Lonsdale in the latter half of the 19th century with the construction of a lighthouse in 1863 and the extension of the railway line from Geelong to Queenscliff in 1879. Since settlement, many ships have been wrecked on the rocky reefs at the entrance to Port Phillip.