The Series has been brought to you to highlight local country towns in the South of Victoria.

​Geelong

The HMS Lady Nelson was commissioned in 1799 to survey the coast of Australia. It made it to Sydney in 1800 but didn’t make it down to Corio Bay until 1802. It wasn’t until 1838 when the greatest township in Victoria was surveyed and the population of 545 was named Geelong. The name Geelong derived from the local Wathaurong Aboriginal name for the region, Jillong, thought to mean "land" or "cliffs". The Wathaurong People were Geelong’s first residents and they originally called the bay “Jillong” and the surrounding land “Corayo”.

Other than that, other notable events in the 1800s for Geelong would include the first issue of the Geelong Advertiser being sold in 1840, Victoria’s first country railway from Geelong to Melbourne was built, in 1857 a line was opened from Geelong to Queenscliff to carry soldiers and materials to assist in the defence of Port Phillip Bay from possible Russian attacks and 1859 saw Thomas Austin think it would be a great idea to release 24 rabbits into the wild on his property ‘Barwon Park’ on Christmas Day, thus introducing the rabbit to Australia.

In the 1900s things got bigger and better. 1910 Geelong officially became a city, the Ford Motor Company opened a plant in Norlane in 1925, Target opened their first store in Geelong in 1926, Alcoa opened a Plant at Point Henry in 1963. The line from Geelong to Queenscliff was closed in 1976 but a section was reopened as a tourist railway in 1979. The country mourned as the Ash Wednesday Fires caused major damage at nearby coastal areas in 1983 and in 1991 the HM Prison Geelong officially conducted its last lock up.

In the 2000s Geelong saw its population rise to 184,000+. The line from Geelong to Queenscliff officially became the Bellarine Rail Trail in 2000.

Source: Wikipedia

June 2001 saw Geelong's first Geocache (Barwon Bonanza – GCCA4) and 2016 saw the placement of 100+ caches on the Road from GEELONG 2 ANGLESEA!