Moyne River
The Moyne River is a river in Victoria’s Western District, Australia. It runs for about 82 kilometers, descending around 190 meters from its source near Stonefield to its mouth at Port Fairy Bay in Bass Strait, near the town of Port Fairy. It is part of the Glenelg Hopkins catchment and has two small tributaries: Gully Creek on the left and Back Creek on the right. Moyne Falls is one of the river’s notable features.
The river rises from near the edge of lava flows west-southwest of Penshurst and usually flows south to the sea. The area where the river meets the sea has been altered by human activity. Originally, the Moyne flowed into the Bass Strait through several channels south of Port Fairy, with the southern outlet, Back Passage, often too rough for boats, while the eastern outlet was blocked by a shallow sand bar.
To improve access to the port, engineers built a jetty from Flagstaff Hill and a breakwater between Griffiths Island and Rabbit Island. In the 1870s, training walls were built that curved from the northern part of Griffiths Island through the sand bar. These changes caused a lot of sand to accumulate on the north coast of Griffiths Island and led to erosion on the back shore north of the breakwaters. A protective stone wall was added in 1911.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:33 (CET).