On a sunny fourteen-degree week day, I raced to St Kilda pier to catch a ferry across the northern end of Port Phillip Bay. The ferry first docked at Port Melbourne pier, then we sailed over calm waters west towards Williamstown. While the sea breeze washed over me, I turned to the eye-catching view of Melbourne’s skyline.
Since tankers couldn’t navigate the Yarra River, this maritime village was intended to be Victoria’s port and capital. But due to a shortage of fresh water, Melbourne became the state capital and Williamstown remained an important port and ship building site. The region around Williamstown, as well as greater Melbourne, was once inhabited by the Kulin Nation. When these lands were taken over by white settlers, many Aborigines died from European diseases, others were forced off their lands.
After the ferry docked, I strolled the main streets that were lined with old buildings and a pub on nearly every corner. During the gold rush era when prospectors arrived from Cornwall and the Californian gold fields and disembarked in Williamstown, there had been as many as forty pubs.
Next, I hiked to the timeball tower situated in Point Gellibrand Park on the outskirts of Williamstown where Europeans first settled in Victoria. In 1849 when the timeball was originally constructed, it was a lighthouse made from bluestone quarried and built with convict labour. Some ten years later, the lighthouse became a timeball tower which allowed ships to adjust their chronometers. Although Point Gellibrand’s tower still dropped its ball daily at one o’clock, today these towers are rare. There remain only three other working timeballs in the world—one in Greenwich, London.
From Point Gellibrand Coastal Heritage Park, a trail ran parallel to Port Phillip Bay. I passed Shelley Beach where a multitude of sea birds gathered on the rocks extending into the bay. Others squawked overhead. This was an easy hike right around the point that ended at Williamstown Beach, a stretch of beach popular in summer though almost deserted on my visit.
On the hike I came across a lava blister. Australia has no active volcanoes, but that wasn’t the case millions of years ago. Western Melbourne was a blaze of volcanic activity. Victoria’s basalt plains formed one of the largest lava plains in the world. When lava flowed to the shore of Point Gellibrand, gas built up within the magma causing a bubble measuring three metres in diameter. Before I spotted this unique formation, the curved roof had collapsed, but the circular sides remained. This formation was extremely rare and I was thrilled by this unexpected discovery.
Leaving Williamstown Beach, I headed back to the pier passing through the Botanic Gardens opened in the 1860s. Most of the trees were unnamed, but walking between the avenue of palms and by giant Moreton Bay fig trees created a peaceful end to my hour-long hike before I caught the ferry back to the other side of the bay.
As the ferry left Williamstown, I noticed a ship, the Sea Shepherd, with what I was sure were guns at both ends of the vessel. The name was vaguely familiar, but with an ominous skull and bones symbol on the side, I found the ship intimidating. It was only when I checked their website I learned that these vessels are involved in the preservation of the oceans and wildlife. The crews are on the lookout for illegal action on the high seas, protecting vaquita porpoise from gill netting off the California Gulf, protecting the Galapagos and tackling pollution, reef preservation and fresh water on the Pacific’s Fanning Island. A skull and bones symbol was something I associated with pirates and had I not checked their website, I would have gone away with the wrong impression.
From here to there 
What a cute historic town that I’ve never heard of. The lava blister though is really fascinating. Maggie
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