Location
Drysdale is inland from Clifton Springs on the Bellarine Peninsula, 16km east of Geelong city.

Description
Drysdale today retains some of its former rural character but has also become popular with commuters. This change in the population has encouraged extensions of the relatively large shopping centre. McLeod's Water Holes, Lake Lorne, and golf courses at Curlewis and Clifton Springs give visitors plenty to see and do. The Bellarine Peninsula Railway that runs to Queenscliff now terminates at Drysdale. Drysdale offers easy access to both Geelong and the principal resort towns of the Bellarine Peninsula.

History
The town was named after Miss Anne Drysdale who had owned farming property in Scotland before migrating, for reasons of health, to Port Phillip. She arrived in 1840 and with a business partner, Miss Caroline Elizabeth Newcomb, had a licence to occupy 'Boronggoop', a 'squatting' run between the Barwon River and Corio Bay . In 1843, the women obtained a lease on Coriyule and in 1848, bought 1,357 acres (approximately 550 hectares) which included Coriyule on which their stone homestead, built in 1849, still stands.

Aborigines of the Wathaurong tribe, whose territory stretched between the Werribee River and the Otway Ranges, occupied the land before settlement. One early settler reported that Aborigines camped at the Water Holes in Drysdale in 1855 but had disappeared by 1900. The land was used by (legal) squatters before Anne Drysdale arrived. After squatter graziers left, grain crops, particularly wheat, were grown in Drysdale during the 1860s. Later, onions and potatoes, still grown today, were farmed. Due to brick and stone construction done in past years, and because Drysdale was a road and rail junction, many historic buildings still remain in the district.