Point Lonsdale Lighthouse, Maritime navigation aid in Point Lonsdale, Australia.
Point Lonsdale Lighthouse is a white concrete tower located on a cliff at the tip of Point Lonsdale, in the Borough of Queenscliffe in Victoria, Australia. The tower tapers as it rises, topped by a lantern room, and sits close to the foreshore with open views toward Bass Strait and the entrance to Port Phillip Bay.
A wooden lighthouse first stood here from 1863, marking the dangerous entrance to Port Phillip Bay for passing ships. The current concrete tower replaced it in 1902 as sea traffic through the heads grew steadily.
The signal station at the tower's base is still staffed and directs commercial shipping in and around Port Phillip Heads, which may make it Australia's last staffed lighthouse. Organised tours run on Sundays, led by the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum. The name Point Lonsdale comes from the headland itself, and the light was the first guiding light to the entrance of Port Phillip visible from the sea.
The lighthouse sits at the end of Point Lonsdale Road, close to the small town center, and is easy to reach on foot from the beach. Guided tours are the best way to see inside the tower, as access is not always open to independent visitors.
The foghorn is not in the tower: it sits in a shed built in 1884, the only known foghorn shed at a Victorian lighthouse. A surviving Gardner engine there sends compressed air to two vertical holding tanks that power the horn, which gives a double blast every 30 seconds in foggy weather.
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