Point Nepean National Park, created out of a former military reserve at the tip of the Mornington Peninsula, occupies the long finger of land which points across Port Phillip Bay almost to touch Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula. Since colonial times, Melbourne-bound ships have negotiated the Rip, this narrow and treacherous entrance into Port Phillip Bay, at considerable risk.

When SS Ticonderoga approached the Heads in 1852, with its cargo of hundreds of dangerously sick passengers and crew, the Point Nepean area offered an obvious site for the hasty establishment of colonial Victoria's first quarantine station. Today, visitors might wonder why the historic quarantine station has not been upgraded and reopened ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fifty-four years ago (17 December 1967), Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt pulled rank, as he often did, to drive himself and a group of friends into the Fort Nepean military reserve and enjoy a swim at one of the isolated beaches, off-limits to the general public. Holt, aged in mid-fifties, waded into the surf at Cheviot Beach - and was never seen again. His companions raised the alarm, but despite exhaustive searching, no clues to Holt's disappearance have ever been found.