Warneet is one the "five Coastal Villages" on the northwest coast of Westernport. The others are Tooradin, Cannon's Creek, Blind Bight, Dalmore and Tooradin North.
Yes, I know that is six, not five. I'm not at all sure that Tooradin North should be allowed onto that list, but I'm not arguing with the locals.
The name "Warneet" is said to mean "River", which is sensible enough given that it is on the Rutherford Inlet, a water that starts out as a little creek until it reaches Cannons Creek, where it widens handsomely, becomes fully tidal and swings around Warneet, to run south between Quail Island and Chinaman Island. Creek hardly works at the stage. It is an inlet.
At high water the creek has some pleasant beaches, but at low tide there are acres of mud and clouds of sandflies, at their worst on Chinaman Island.
Warneet began as a fishing camp, described as a hidden jewel, not known even when Cannons Creek had a few houses, just around the corner. It is said that Les Crouch founded Warneet in 1925 and that might well be the case. He'd seen the beach from a boat and was determined to find a way in overland. It took time, but on 21 June 1925 he broke free of the bush in which he'd been lost overnight and walked out onto the sand.
Crouch wanted to buy the land but couldn't, though he got permission to build a boatshed on the foreshore. He and half a dozen friends brought in building materials by boat, but a track must have been developed fairly soon because the primitive little camp soon boasted more 'facilities'. There were two car bodies (Bob Crouch, Les' son, slept in one while the boatshed was being built) and there was a Chevrolet bus brought down from Ballarat to be used as sleeping quarters.
A few locals also built boatsheds and rough cabins and a simple little holiday and fishing community was being born. The people paid 15 shillings a year for 'permissive occupancy.'
In the early 1930s the area was surveyed and 14 blocks were put up for sale. Les Crouch bought five of them. I'm not sure what the auction prices were in the end but the upset price was 20 pounds. Crouch was a committed pioneer, For many years he generated electricity for the whole community.
The telephone lines from Cannon's Creek came in 1951 and a new line was later built down the Warneet road past Blind Bight, in 1957. State Electricity Commission wires reached Warneet in 1956, a little later that one might have thought,
Mains water completed the utilities trifecta when a pipe was run across from Cannon's Creek, later replaced by a bigger one coming down past Blind Bight, which was the real reason for it.
Until that mains water came from Cannon's Creek, every square foot of roofing was used to collect rainwater. Drums and tanks stood under downpipes n it was a lucky camper who did not have o del with mosquito larvae ("wrigglers") an even the occasional dead possum in the drinking water.
The jetties first built by the locals were primitive, built with timber out of the local scrub. Ti-tree stakes marked the channel, sometimes with hurricane lamps hung from them t night. (Shallow Inlet also used ti-tree stakes, but over the years he little channel to the boat basin moved hither and yon, so that some of the channel markers were a long way from the channel).
There have been a series of piers and jetties built by the locals with no government help (or approval) and even a couple of slipways. Wooden boats need to come out of the water for maintenance and it is no easy task to haul a heavy wooden boat up without a proper slipway.
By 1966 Warneet and Cannons Creek had about 300 boats in their recreational fleet. Rutherford Creek provides a sheltered route to Western Port. The numbers are even greater now, but the management of the jetties passed to Parks Victoria and that organisation did not have the funds, or the will, to preserve jetties in Western Port and Port Phillip, with dire consequences.
The north and south jetties at Warneet were closed because of dangers to the public caused by failed maintenance programs, and only now are funds being provided for the necessary repairs, but this happened only because of a strong campaign by residents.