Corio Bay is one of numerous internal bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.
Corio Bay is one of numerous internal bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.
Geelong (/dʒɪˈlɒŋ/ jih-LONG; Wathawurrung: Djilang/Djalang) is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, about 75 km (47 mi) southwest of Melbourne. With an estimated population of 282,809 in 2023, Geelong is the second-largest city in the state of Victoria. It is the administrative centre for the City of Greater Geelong municipality, which is Port Phillip's only regional metropolitan area, and covers all the urban, rural and coastal reserves around the city including the entire Bellarine Peninsula and running from the plains of Lara in the north to the rolling hills of Waurn Ponds to the south, with Corio Bay to the east and the Barrabool Hills to the west.
The traditional owners of the land on which Geelong sits are the Wadawurrung (also known as Wathaurong) Aboriginal people of the Kulin nation. The modern name of Geelong, first recorded in 1827, was derived from the local Wadawurrung name for the region, Djilang, thought to mean "land", "cliffs" or "tongue of land or peninsula". The area was first surveyed by the European settlers in 1838, three weeks after Melbourne. During the 1850s Victorian gold rush, Geelong experienced a brief boom as the main port to the goldfields of central Victoria. The town then diversified into manufacturing, and during the 1860s became one of the largest manufacturing centres in Australia with its wool mills, ropeworks, and paper mills. During the city's early years, inhabitants of Geelong were often called Geelongites or Pivotonians, derived from the city's nickname of "The Pivot", referring to the city's role as a shipping and rail hub for Ballarat and the Western District.
Geelong Grammar School is a private Anglican co-educational boarding and day school. The school's main campus is located in Corio on the northern outskirts of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, overlooking Corio Bay and Limeburners Bay.
Established in 1855 under the auspices of the Church of England, Geelong Grammar School has a non-selective enrolment policy and currently caters for approximately 1,500 students from Pre-school to Year 12, including 800 boarders from Years 5 to 12.
Port Phillip (Kulin: Narm-Narm) or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, narrow channel known as The Rip, and is completely surrounded by localities of Victoria's two largest cities — metropolitan Greater Melbourne in the bay's main eastern portion north of the Mornington Peninsula, and the city of Greater Geelong in the much smaller western portion (known as the Corio Bay) north of the Bellarine Peninsula. Geographically, the bay covers 1,930 km (750 sq mi) and the shore stretches roughly 264 km (164 mi), with the volume of water around 25 km (6.0 cu mi). Most of the bay is navigable, although it is extremely shallow for its size — the deepest portion is only 24 m (79 ft) and half the bay is shallower than 8 m (26 ft). Its waters and coast are home to seals, whales, dolphins, corals and many kinds of seabirds and migratory waders.
Before European settlement, the area around Port Phillip was divided between the territories of the Wathaurong (west), Wurundjeri (north) and Boonwurrung (south and east) people, all part of the indigeous Kulin nation. The first Europeans to enter the bay were the crews of HMS Lady Nelson, commanded by John Murray and, ten weeks later, HMS Investigator commanded by Matthew Flinders, in 1802. Subsequent expeditions into the bay took place in 1803 to establish the first settlement in Victoria, near Sorrento, but was abandoned in 1804. Thirty years later, settlers from Tasmania returned to establish Melbourne (now Victoria's capital city) at the mouth of the Yarra River in 1835, and Geelong at Corio Bay in 1838. Today, Port Phillip is the most densely populated catchment in Australia with an estimated 5.5 million people living around the bay; Melbourne's suburbs extend around much of the northern and eastern shorelines, and the city of Geelong sprawls around Corio Bay in the bay's western arm.
Limeburners Bay, one of numerous bays in Port Phillip, lies in the southwest and adjoins Corio Bay, which abuts Geelong, the second largest city in Victoria, Australia. The bay was named after lime kilns, located on the east side of Corio Bay, used to burn limestone for making cement.
In the 1820s, explorers Hume and Hovell ended their journey in the area of Limeburners Bay before returning to Sydney. It is a tide-dominated estuary that runs off Hovells Creek. The area is popular for recreational fishing and hiking and birdwatching. Geelong Grammar School overlooks the bay.
The Bellarine Peninsula (Wadawurrung: Balla-wein or Biteyong) is a peninsula located south-west of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, surrounded by Port Phillip, Corio Bay and Bass Strait. The peninsula, together with the Mornington Peninsula, separates Port Phillip Bay from Bass Strait. The peninsula itself was originally occupied by Indigenous Australian clans of the Wadawurrung nation, prior to European settlement in the early 19th century. Early European settlements were initially centred on wheat and grain agriculture, before the area became a popular tourist destination with most visitors arriving by paddle steamer on Port Phillip in the late 19th century.
Today, approximately 70,000 people live on the Bellarine, and this population doubles at peak periods during summer. The peninsula is a growing tourist region with a variety of beaches and seaside resorts and wineries; most of the peninsula is a part of the City of Greater Geelong.