Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park
Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park
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Portsea VIC 3944
With its proximity to Victoria's largest city the southern end of the Bay has high visitor usage throughout the year with a huge peak over the summer months. The southern Bay is Melbourne's summer playground and many of the areas within Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park are popular for a range of recreational pursuits from snorkelling and SCUBA diving through to passive recreation on the beach.
Habitat types found within the park include seagrass beds, sheltered intertidal mudflats, intertidal sandy beaches and rocky shores, subtidal soft substrata and rocky reefs, as well as the open water environment. The diversity and abundance of marine flora and fauna in this region are greater than many comparable habitats elsewhere in the world. The park is located in an area renowned for its diversity of migratory wader birds and includes a number of sites listed under a number of treaties to protect migratory bird habitat including International Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (the Ramsar Convention).
The high diversity of marine life around the mouth of Port Phillip is due to the wide range of habitats in the area and its central Victorian location. The area marks the end of the range for some animals and plants that prefer the cold waters of western Victoria, but it also supports warmth-loving species from eastern Australia that can survive in the bay's relatively calm, shallow waters. A high proportion of Victorian species of marine flora and fauna are represented in the Port Phillip Head's region. As an example the area supports about 10 per cent of all of Australia's feathery stinging animals known as known hydroids.
For the latest information on track closures and park access, please see the Parks Victoria website. Be bushfire smart. Follow the Parks Victoria checklist before travelling.
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