locals was noted at that time. Apart from the likely wanderings of the escaped English convict, William Buckley, who lived among the Wautharong people around the Bellarine Peninsula for 32 years after escaping into the bush in 1803, there was little European contact with the area until the arrival of the pioneer settler, John Batman, and his Port Phillip Association expedition in 1835. Batman established a base camp at Indented Head, and proceeded to survey the interior of the peninsula. Batman wrote glowing reports of the pasture and grazing potential of the Bellarine Hills (which he named "Wedge's Range"), with a view of attracting interest in establishing sheep runs in the Port Phillip area. Further exploration was carried out by John Helder Wedge later in 1835, with Batman's encouragement, and Wedge is believed to have again passed through the vicinity of Portarlington. He was also much impressed by the countryside, which he named "Ballarine", but discovering the scarcity of fresh water, he directed his attentions elsewhere. When the first organised group of settlers arrived from Van Diemen's Land aboard the Enterprize in August 1835, they sought out the well-watered northern reaches of Port Phillip, around the Yarra River. Wedge and the Batman party quickly abandoned Bellarine and Indented Head and followed them there. Settlement When the holdings of the Port Phillip Association were allocated, the Bellarine Peninsula was allotted to the member, John Sinclair, who was the Superintendent of the Engineers' Depot in Launceston. Sinclair was injured in February 1837, when he came to Port Phillip and attempted to visit his property. His two companions, Joseph Gellibrand and George Hesse, who continued the journey without him, disappeared, and no trace of them was ever found. Sinclair was evacuated back to Melbourne from Point Henry and made no further effort to take up his allotted land, although he remained in the Port Phillip District. By 1839 the Port Phillip Association had been bought out by the Derwent Company, which sold a number of runs on the Bellarine Peninsula and Indented Head to squatters, before folding in 1842. Among the earliest known settlers in the vicinity of Portarlington was the former Hobart butcher, Henry Baynton, who was recorded there in the 1840s. Baynton established a cattle shipping service between Portarlington and Van Diemen's Land. He is believed to have had a station named Westham, which may have occupied a site near the