Port Fairy

Port Fairy is a picture postcard village at the mouth of the Moyne in the southwest of Victoria. It remains a fishing village and the small fleet that operates out of the port provides a regular supply of seafood, including crayfish or lobster. Whale were rounded up in Port Fairy Bay, harpooned and then hauled up on to the eastern beach of Griffiths Island for processing. By the mid 1840s, the whales had been hunted close extinction and the station closed. Historical accounts report that so many southern right whales were taken that East Beach was littered with giant bones. The "Port Fairy Historic Life Boat Station" was one of the first voluntary organisations in Victoria, even so most volunteers could not swim. The book "Lifeboats for Victoria" lists more than 80 wrecked ships, lives lost, life boat rescues, rope rescues, dead bodies and rescuers drowned. These rescues are among the true stories of heroism in colonial Australia.