Qualla: Geelong

Geelong: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Wadawurrung people called this curve of land Djilang, a word taken to mean a tongue of land or a place by the cliffs. The English ear softened it into Geelong. For most of the 20th century, the name meant one thing: work. Wool mills, ropeworks, paper mills, and later the great Ford engine plant gave the city its identity and its old nickname, 'The Pivot' — the hub through which the wool and gold of western Victoria swung on its way to the world. Then the factories closed, one by one, and the city that had been defined by making things had to decide what it would become.

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Image: Mattinbgn | CC BY-SA 3.0

Geelong: Gateway to the Goldfields

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mattinbgn (changes by Rabanus Flavus), CC BY 4.0. Geelong sits on Corio Bay, the western pocket of Port Phillip, about 75 kilometres south-west of Melbourne. On a clear day you can see Melbourne's towers shimmering across the water from the higher streets. Europeans surveyed the site in 1838, just three weeks after Melbourne its...

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Image: Mattinbgn (changes by Rabanus Flavus) | CC BY 4.0

Geelong: The City That Made Things

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ozdregs, CC BY-SA 4.0. Geelong answered by building. Through the late 19th and 20th centuries it became one of Australia's great manufacturing centres: wool scoured and spun here, paper milled at Fyansford, ships loaded at the docks. In 1925 Ford established its Australian engine works in the city, and...

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Image: Ozdregs | CC BY-SA 4.0

Geelong: Reinvention on the Waterfront

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marcus Wong Wongm, CC BY-SA 3.0. What came next surprised the doubters. Geelong turned to its bay. The Eastern Beach foreshore, restored from its 1930s heyday, became the heart of a reborn waterfront, complete with a carousel and a promenade of cheerful bollards painted as the figures of the city's past. Deakin ...

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Image: Marcus Wong Wongm | CC BY-SA 3.0

Geelong: Cats, Culture and Corio Bay

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geelonggallery, CC BY-SA 4.0. No account of Geelong survives contact with a local without mention of the football. The Geelong Football Club, the Cats, was founded in 1859, making it the second-oldest club in the Australian Football League and one of the oldest football clubs anywhere in the world. On match d...

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Image: Geelonggallery | CC BY-SA 4.0