Blairgowrie is a seaside town on the

Mornington Peninsula The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located south of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to the mainland in the north. Geogra ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, approximately south of Melbourne's

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

, located within the

Shire of Mornington Peninsula The Shire of Mornington Peninsula is a local government area in southeastern Metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is located to the south of the Melbourne City Centre. It has an area of 724 square kilometres and in June 2018 it had a ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

. Blairgowrie recorded population of 2,786 at the 2021 census.

History

Blairgowrie was named after the Burgh of Blairgowrie, the largest town in

Perth and Kinross Perth and Kinross ( sco, Pairth an Kinross; gd, Peairt agus Ceann Rois) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and a Lieutenancy Area. It borders onto the Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Fife, Highland and S ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. A post office was not opened until 1 November 1947.

Rhys Isaac Rhys Llywelyn Isaac (20 November 1937 – 6 October 2010) was a South African-born Australian historian of American history who also worked in the United States. Isaac and his twin brother Glynn were born in Cape Town, South Africa, to Wil ...

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

-winning historian, died in Blairgowrie in October 2010.

Present day

Blairgowrie is located near the western tip of the

, between

Sorrento Sorrento (, ; nap, Surriento ; la, Surrentum) is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. A popular tourist destination, Sorrento is located on the Sorrentine Peninsula at the south-eastern terminus of the Circumvesuviana rail ...

and Rye, and is one of many popular holiday destinations for Melburnians along this narrow peninsula strip. It is bordered on the north by

Port Phillip Port Phillip (Kulin languages, Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped bay#Types, enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, ...

, and on the south by

Bass Strait Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The strait provides the most direct waterwa ...

and a series of surf beaches interspersed with spectacular cliffs and rocky ledges. It is frequented by tourists in the summer months, and has been featured on numerous travel programs. Blairgowrie Pier is the most popular shore dive site for recreational

scuba diving Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Chris ...

inside

. It was built as a safe boat harbour and marina by the Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron. Blairgowrie Pier is highly regarded for the more than a hundred different species of

nudibranch Nudibranchs () are a group of soft-bodied marine gastropod molluscs which shed their shells after their larval stage. They are noted for their often extraordinary colours and striking forms, and they have been given colourful nicknames to matc ...

that have been identified there. Each year from May through July thousands of spider crabs migrate along the ocean floor to the cool, shallow waters around Blairgowrie Pier. When the water temperature drops, the spider crabs moult their shells. While their new shells harden, they crowd together for protection from predators like stingrays, seals and sharks, sometimes forming stacks more than a metre high. There are also

octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttle ...

cuttlefish Cuttlefish or cuttles are marine molluscs of the order Sepiida. They belong to the class Cephalopoda which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses. Cuttlefish have a unique internal shell, the cuttlebone, which is used for control of ...

, seahorses, box fish, large stingrays, decorator crabs, stargazers, invertebrate, goat fish, blennies, and much colour underwater at Blairgowrie Pier.

References

External links

* Suburbs of Melbourne Suburbs of the Shire of Mornington Peninsula Coastal towns in Victoria (Australia) {{Melbourne-geo-stub

History

Present day

See also

References

External links