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community sailed south across the Bass Strait to the colder, wetter climes of Van Diemen's
Land, to another pretty place, where a camp had been set up by Lt John Bowen, acting on
orders similar to those given to Collins, in September 1803. This settlement was in the south of
the island at the mouth of a river, and was called Hobart. It became the second oldest state
capital after Sydney, and the smallest and most southerly. In due course, Collins became the
first Governor of Van Diemen's Land.
Sullivan Bay lapsed into nonentity. Its moment had passed; it would never be a town, nor a
significant name on any map. Collins had concluded that the location for various reasons was
ultimately unsuitable for a settlement, and for some reason, no other site, of the many around the
bay possessing better supplies of water and better soil, was chosen, although one of Collins'
lieutenants, exploring Corio Bay, had declared it to be 'a perfectly secure and commodious
harbour'.
Lt Tuckey added in his report: 'At the head of the harbour, the land rises from abrupt cliffs to
downs.' And there he landed, the first European to stand in a
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wood of gum-trees, that would nearly all be felted within 40 years, and where the citizens of
modern Geelong now conduct their busy lives. Further north, Tuckey's crew encountered some
aborigines. Gifts were exchanged, but some contretemps resulted and an aborigine died, the first
to be killed in Victoria by a white man.
Thenceforth, for 20 years, the whole area slumbered on in Stone Age simplicity, undisturbed by
no white man - apart from one.
William Buckley was one of three convicts who had escaped in 1804 from the aborted colony
at Sullivan Bay; he was 23. Somehow he survived, walking right round Port Phillip Bay until he
reached and was accepted by the tribe who inhabited the Bellarine Peninsula, on the other side
of the Rip, and virtually opposite his first, fettered Australian home. For 30 years he existed
among the aborigines, sole white lord of the wild and knowing it like no other then or since.
Then in 1835 he saw an English ship, and heard English voices, and walked into an encampment
made in May at Indented Head. A generation had passed and now new settlers had arrived.
These were led by John Batman, aged 34, a Tasmanian grazier. Suitable land for sheep-farming
in Tasmania had become limited since the permanent settlement of Hobart and the establishment
of a penal colony. Displeased with all this, and despite opposition from the government of New
South Wales, Batman and others had decided to find and possess new acres elsewhere. They
formed the Port Phillip Association. Assisted in part by Buckley's knowledge of the land and the
aboriginal language, Batman and his party, after setting up a depot, explored the west and north
of Port Phillip Bay. Like Flinders, Batman also climbed hills and stood, like Flinders, on Station
Peak.
He also liked what he saw: 'I never could have imagined it possible that so fine a country existed
on the face of the globe: gentle hills, plains and downs, on which 5,000 sheep might have been
allowed to feed with little trouble to their shepherd.'
While Batman moved north, an associate, John Wedge, made a more thorough exploration of
the countryside around Corio Bay and as far south as Torquay. He discovered the confluence
of the Barwon and Moorabool Rivers west of Geelong and crossed the Barrabool Hills. He
named a waterfall after his guide: Buckley's Falls. The Wild White Man was given an official
pardon in due course, and in 1838 he returned to something like civilisation, retiring to Hobart,
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