Welcome to Mordialloc!
Before settlement, a huge swamp called 'Carrum Carrum' extended from Mordialloc to Frankston, an area of 27 square miles, with two outlets to Port Phillip
Bay-Mordialloc and Kananook Creeks.
Thats how Mordialloc Creek was depicted by 19-th century artist.. (year 1865)
View on Melbourne's suburbs from the Arthur Seat Hill.
Carrum Swamp was rich in natural vegetation and teemed with wildlife-kangaroos, wallabies, emus, birds and many other
native animals. The creeks were full of fish, yabbies, eels and snakes.
Carrum swamp was progressively drained for development and all that remains is Edithvale Wetlands.
Open bush surrounded the swamp and examples are preserved in City of Kingston bush reserves.
The original inhabitants of the area were the aboriginal tribe called 'Bunurong'. They roamed from Tarwin River, near Wilson's Promontry,
to Werribee River, finding abundant food, clothing and shelter.
When explorers discovered Port Phillip Bay in the early 1800s, they reported that the Bunurong were friendly, well-fed and healthy with a population of 200-300
.
But , disease and pressure from settelers caused numbers to fall to 83 in 1839, with most living on an aboriginal reserve south of
Mordialloc Creek, near the Bridge Hotel.
The last full-blood members, Jimmy Dunbar and his lubra, Elza, died in 1877. There is a memorial to the Bunurong in Attenborough
Park opposite the Bridge Hotel in Mordialloc. Bunurong descendants are part of our community today.
Mordialloc was setteled before Mentone and Parkdale. Mordialloc began as a fishing village of mainly Scottish
folk around 1839, shortly after Melbourne was found.
The first squater was Major James Frazer who had a wooden hut where the Scullin Foreshore Reserve now.
The first permanent setteler was Alexander MacDonald who planted Monterey Cypresses by Mordialloc Creek (now about
150 year old), and built the Mordialloc Hotel in 1853, which became Cobb&Co way station for the Mornington Peninsula run.
Mordialloc is named from a corruption of two aboriginal words, 'Murdi' and 'Yallock'.
The meaning is uncertain but it is thought Murdi means flat and Yallock means creek or stream, so
Mordialloc could be translated as flat water or 'creek entering deep water'.
By 1875 Mordialloc was a booming holiday resort, poplar for picnicking, hunting, swimming, boating and fishing
on Port Phillip Bay.
The Pompei family (from Sicily) started boat building business in Mordialloc in 1912; their boatyard on Mordialloc Creek is probably the
last commercial builder of timber boats in Australia.
Visit this site to see Aboriginal Art
