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| View of the Saltwater River (Maribyrnong) upstream c. 1888, almost a century after Charles Grimes first surveyed it. |
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| Photo by Fred Kruger (1831-1888) contributed by the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. |
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Charles Grimes led a party sent out to survey the country around Port Phillip Bay in the summer of 1802-1803. They first rowed up the western branch of the 'Great River' that emptied into the north of the bay, but found the water salty.
Several miles upstream they came to a rocky spot, later called Solomons Ford, where Grimes observed some Aboriginal fish traps. Here the surveyors left their boat behind and continued on foot until they reached a place where the river divided (the confluence of Jackson's Creek and Deep Creek). Though the water here was fresh and deep enough to take a boat, the place was too far from the sea to make a good site for settlement, so the surveyors retraced their steps and explored the branch of the river that ran off to the east. This time they were in luck. A few miles upstream they found 'excellent water'. Grimes named this stream the Freshwater River, but left the salty western river nameless.
James Flemming, the gardener attached to the expedition, was unimpressed by the lack of trees and the stony soil. Grimes's pessimistic report helped to discourage settlement in the area for more than thirty years. When Europeans again began to eye Port Phillip, it was for grazing rather than agriculture, and the move was led by a private syndicate established by John Batman.
Copyright Imagine The Future Inc. and Australian Film Commission, 2002.
Text by Jenny Lee for ITF.
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