Point Lonsdale

Point Lonsdale is a coastal town on the western side of the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, 62 km in a direct line south-west of Melbourne. It is part of Queenscliffe borough and postdates the town of Queenscliff by about 20 years.

Point Lonsdale’s first European inhabitant was an escaped convict, William Buckley, who lived among Aborigines in the area from 1803 to 1836. Buckley’s cave, his supposed occasional shelter, is near the lighthouse on the actual point named after Port Phillip’s police magistrate, Captain William Lonsdale.