The suburb of Port Melbourne has serviced this city for nearly 200 years as a safe landing destination in the Port Phillip Bay. As the sun sets on a nice day it is not uncommon to see a group of photographers and fishermen enjoying the scenery and views of the harbour.

The skeletal rows of timber rising from the still water are what remains of Princes Pier. Built between 1912 and 1915 by the Melbourne Harbor Trust to supplement the adjacent Station Pier, it was originally christened the New Railway Pier. It earned its current name in May 1920, when the visiting Prince of Wales – later briefly King Edward VIII – stepped ashore here. For more than half a century the pier was Victoria’s front door. Eight railway tracks ran the length of its planks, ferrying passengers and cargo directly from ocean to city right up until 1953. From 1915 until 1969, this was the gateway for new arrivals to Victoria – countless post-war migrants disembarked here at Princes Pier and at neighbouring Station Pier, suitcases in hand, while soldiers boarded and returned through both World Wars on these very boards.

Containerisation eventually rendered the old timber pier obsolete. By the early 1990s it had been closed to the public due to the deteriorating timber, and squatters’ fires in the late 1990s destroyed the store structures. After a refurbishment, the first 196 metres of decking was fully restored and reopened in December 2011 — but beyond that point, the decking was removed and the original pylons left preserved: bare timber marching toward the horizon.

It is here, at the restored end, that photographers gather as the day fades. The ritual is familiar – tripod legs splayed wide, neutral density filter screwed on, shutter held open for thirty seconds or more until the chop of Port Phillip smooths into glass. The pylons line up in receding perspective, mussel-encrusted at the waterline, weathered silver above, catching the last warm light against a sky bruising from coral to indigo. Across the bay, the cranes of the working port wink to life.

Fishermen drift in alongside, lines dropped between the pylons where snapper, bream and trevally shelter. Two hobbies, two centuries, one quiet stretch of water.