Cape Bridgewater

Cape Bridgewater
Victoria

Looking down towards the Cape Bridgewater foreshore area
Cape Bridgewater
Coordinates 38°22′0″S 141°24′0″E / 38.36667°S 141.40000°E / -38.36667; 141.40000Coordinates: 38°22′0″S 141°24′0″E / 38.36667°S 141.40000°E / -38.36667; 141.40000
Postcode(s) 3305
Location
LGA(s) Shire of Glenelg
State electorate(s) South-West Coast
Federal Division(s) Wannon

Cape Bridgewater is a locality in Victoria, Australia. It is located on the western shore of Bridgewater Bay, 21 kilometres south-west of Portland, and 383 kilometres from Melbourne. It lies within the Discovery Bay Coastal Park.

The area was settled in the 1860s and a post office opened in 1863 (closed 1968) though known as Bridgewater Lower for some years.[1]

Both Cape Bridgewater and Bridgewater Bay were named by named after the Duke of Bridgewater (1756-1829), by Lieutenant James Grant sailing on the Lady Nelson on 4 December 1800.[2][3][4][5]

Cape Bridgewater is home to a colony of up to 650 fur seals and has the highest coastal cliff in Victoria. These cliffs are suitable spot to observe southern right whales in winter and spring. The cape itself also boasts a large blowhole and karst solution pipes, colloquially known as the petrified forest,[6] but now known to be hollow tubes of limestone, eroded as a result of millions of years of rainfall. Bridgewater Bay and the adjacent Cape form a partially submerged volcanic caldera. To the west is a large area with huge sand dunes. For these reasons the Cape and the nearby coastal area is classed by the government as the second most important coastline in Victoria, after the 'Twelve Apostles', along the Great Ocean Road

Wind energy

Construction of wind turbines by the company Pacific Hydro has begun on the cape after some controversy. This is part of the Portland Wind Project

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Premier Postal History. "Post Office List". Retrieved 2008-04-11.
  2. ↑ Grant, James (1803), The narrative of a voyage of discovery, performed in His Majesty's vessel the Lady Nelson, London: Roworth, p. 195, cited in Bird (2006)
  3. ↑ Lee, Ida (1915), The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson, London: Grafton, p. 328, retrieved 2011-02-11, cited in Bird (2006)
  4. ↑ Bird, Eric (12 October 2006). "Place Names on the Coast of Victoria". The Australian National Placename Survey (ANPS). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-02-09.
  5. ↑ Chart of the N and W. parts of Bass's Straits discovered and sailed through in a passage from England to Port Jackson in December 1800 in H.M. armed surveying vessel Lady Nelson commanded by Jas. Grant .., retrieved 2011-02-11
  6. ↑ Lipar, M., Webb, J. A., White, S.Q., Grimes, K.G., 2015. The genesis of solution pipes: Evidence from the Middle-Late Pleistocene Bridgewater Formation calcarenite, southeastern Australia. Geomorphology, 246, p. 90-103.

External links

Media related to Cape Bridgewater at Wikimedia Commons


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