This morning was overcast and very brisk. Craig had comped us an ensuite site and I enjoyed an uninterrupted shower that was a bit longer than I normally get. It is, unfortunately, no where near a big enough shower area for Russ who would be unable to even turn around in it. It is probably the biggest reason that the ensuites are to be demolished and new ones built, along with all the improvements planned for the park in the near future.
We left the caravan park at 9:52am and the temperature was sitting at a very cool 11 degrees. We went first to the Otway Fly Treetop Adventures sight which is near both Ferguson and Weeaproinah, and past Beech Forest, to find out when the next Zip line tour would take place. Chelsea was very informative and said she could take the booking then, but if we could get online and do it ourselves there was a special on offer which would give us a reduction in cost. The next tour was not until Thursday, so we thanked her and left.
Our journey to the Adventure place was well up into the hills, and around the 490 metres above sea level mark (masl) it was very misty, and the temperature was even lower than Colac. Along the 300 metre walk from the carpark to the office/café area we saw a Yellow Robin, a Thrush, and the Superb Fairy Wrens. Of course, the cameras were in the car!
We continued on our drive and headed further south, stopping at Castle Cove near Glenaire, which is one of the stops on the Great Ocean Road Walking Track.
After that we went to the Cape Otway Light station. It was amazing. Cape Otway Lighthouse is the oldest surviving lighthouse on mainland Australia.
Built in 1848, the lighthouse perches on towering sea cliffs where Bass Strait and the Southern Ocean collide.
Hundreds of lives were lost in shipwrecks off Cape Otway – a sad but fascinating history which led to the building of the Light station on the coast at the foot of the impenetrable forests of the Otways.
For many thousands of 19th century migrants, who spent months travelling to Australia by ship, Cape Otway was their first sight of land after leaving Europe.
Once again, we learnt fascinating parts of Australia’s history, especially during the wars, that were never taught at school, and rarely discussed anywhere.
We started our walk around the precinct at the Cape Otway Dinosaur Exhibition, and yes, there are fossils of these creatures found in Vicotria.
The fossils were collected from the cliffs and shore platforms that lie below the Otway Lighthouse, which are unique in that they represent plants and animals that lived here more than 100 million years ago, when Australia and Antarctica were still a connected land mass.
Volcanoes were erupting to the east of Australia as New Zealand and Australia said goodbye to each other. The ash from these eruptions provided the date for the sediments, now rocks, that were deposited from the fast moving streams in the area.
Southern Australia at that time lay far south of where it is today. There were no ice caps, but it was cold. The Otway dinosaurs have been excavated since the 1980s, most famously from a place new the Lighthouse called Dinosaur Cove. Digs still go on in this region, and more discoveries are being made each year.
Over the last 65 million years major movement of Australia from a far southerly position to one near the Equator has brought about climatic shifts. Animals and plants then responded to these changes. In those early years of the shift forest-dwelling marsupials, dolphins, platypuses and flamingos lived in the very centre of the continent in the permanent lakes, and in the canopy of abundant rainforests.
As Australia moved north the lakes dried, the seasons became more pronounced and the rains came in winter, not summer. The monsoon established itself along the north coast.
With the loss of permanent water in the centre, the flamingos and dolphins of that time became extinct. The kangaroos and gigantic reptiles became more prevalent. As the land masses of those ancient times began to break apart the Atlantic and Great Southern Oceans as well as the Tasman Sea, were formed.
Since those times much of Alaska and Antarctica have not much changed their geographic placement, but Australia made a long trek north from its former position.
Penguins have a long history in Australia stretching back 50 million years or more. One impressive penguin at that time was a giant when compared with today’s penguins. It probably weighed upwards of 100 kilograms and reached 1.5 metres or more in height.
Mammals lived and developed at the same time as the dinosaurs. But, as long as the dinosaur was around, the mammals remained relatively small, and probably nocturnal. Once the dinosaurs were gone, mammals took over the world.
From Australia’s polar faunas came the ancestors of today’s Platypus and Echidna. The polar regions of 65 million years ago were the most marginal environments in which dinosaurs lived. These regions appear to have served as a refuge for some, and they lived much longer than their counterparts elsewhere in the world. It also seems to have been a nursery for the birth of new groups.
Long, long ago (about 105 to 115 million years ago) in the land now called Australia, it was totally dark for three months of the year during a very long winter. The sun never shone, but for two weeks each month a pale moon shed its ghostly light across the countryside.
It was a scene that cannot be found anywhere on earth today – high latitude, long sunless winter months, and yet it was a place covered by great forests of conifers, tree ferns, and low growing plants with flowers – some of the oldest flowers known.
After that very interesting insight at the Exhibition, we moved onto the Cape Otway Telegraph Station, which was built in 1859, and was to facilitate the placement of a submarine telegraph cable, the first attempt to connect mainland Australia with Tasmania.
The cable length was 388 kilometres long and came ashore at Parker River, six kilometres away from Cape Otway. Unfortunately, the submarine cable was frequently damaged as a result of weather conditions in Bass Strait, and it was abandoned after only two years.
The Telegraph Station building housed the telegraph office, battery room, plus the living quarters for the operators and their families. It had 3 bedrooms, kitchen and pantry, and sometimes the families had anywhere from 8 to 11 children. The assistant was also expected to be housed there and any shipwrecked sailors. It had no bathroom and, as per the times, the rooms were very small.
The cost of building the Telegraph Station in 1859 was two thousand, four hundred and fifty nine pounds and ten shillings. The stonework for the building came from the sandstone quarry at Parker River. The slate tiles for the roof were imported from Wales.
However, after the closure of the cable the Telegraph Station became a Signal Station until 1902. It communicated with, and reported on, shipping that passed Cape Otway. The information gathered would be telegraphed on from the Cape to Geelong, Melbourne and beyond.
During its history it has also been used as a school, Post Office, a Naval Signals Station, and was a lookout during World War 2. It was last used in 1972 after which it fell into disuse and decay until it was restore in 2003.
Before the days of radio communication, signal flags were used to communicate with the ships passing Cape Otway. Each flag would represent either a single letter of the alphabet or have a specific meaning. As ships passed the cape the signal operators were able to find out such things as the name of the ship, its point of departure along with its port of destination, and if it was an immigrant ship, they would find out how many passengers were being carried, and the number of births and deaths during its voyage.
Also, and very crucial in those times, they could find out if any infections such as Cholera, Typhus and Scarlett Fever were on board. In this way the Signal operators were able to provide the point of destination if a quarantine station was required.
In the 19th Century if a ship flew a yellow flag, it meant it was carrying disease. Today, the flying of a yellow flag means the opposite and that they are free from any infection and all healthy.
In a remarkable story about flags the SS (steam ship) Great Britain was constructed in 1843 in Bristol, UK. She was still in operation in 2016 and whilst she was in dry dock, she flew the same signal flag. This ship made 32 voyages from Liverpool to Melbourne during the period 1852 – 1875 and carried 25,000 passengers overall. They didn’t specify if the return trip was a separate voyage or became part of the one statistic.
Telegraphy revolutionized communication and was the equivalent in its day of the introduction of the Internet in our times. It allowed a faster method of communication and information exchange – it shrank the world for the inhabitants. With the advent of the telegraph, information that had previously taken days and months to send and receive via horse and ship, now took minutes and hours.
Telegraph was developed simultaneously in Britain and the United States. The first patent of an electric telegraph dates to 1837, but general adoption of the system didn’t occur until after Samuel Morse’s successful trial in May 1844 when he sent a message from Washington to Baltimore.
Telegraphy technology was brought to Australia in 1853 by Samuel McGowan. The first electric connection ran from Melbourne to Williamstown, and the first message received was in March 1854. Later that year the wire was extended to Geelong and Queenscliff.
One of the first messages transmitted in Australia was the first account to reach Melbourne of the Eureka Rebellion on the goldfields in Ballarat in 1854.
The working day of a typical Telegraph Station began at 8:30am until 8:00pm. Cape Otway operators had a longer day still. They had two shifts – from 9:00am to 2:00pm, and then 10:00pm to 2:00am.
Cape Otway was also one of the first Telegraph stations to employ a female assistant. In many rural areas if it wasn’t for female staff the Telegraph Station would not have been able to operate.
The Telegraph Station not only transmitted shipping details, but also formed an important communication link between the Otways and the rest of Australia. It also transmitted official and public messages. One of the first of these concerned the discovery on the shoreline of a mail bag containing 200 letters from the Admella, which wrecked off South Australia a month earlier with the loss of 89 lives and 113 mail bags.
It also communicated the discovery of persons lost and found in the Otways, and during medical emergencies aid could be administered at the Telegraph Station with further instruction telegraphed back to them.
In 1874 it sent 1219 messages but generated no revenue. In 1890 is sent 1569 messages and 2427 letters but raised only seven pounds in revenue. At that time the salary of the manager was 175 pounds a year, and the operator’s salary was 123 pounds per year.
It was never a profitable concern, but its value lay in providing a link with shipping arriving off the coast, which is why it continued to be used until 1902. The Telegraph Station provided information on ships carrying mail for Victoria and beyond. The Nubia arrived in May 1872 carrying 39,000 letters, 4000 packets and 88,000 newspapers.
During its history all the stores connected with the Telegraph Station were landed with those of the Lighthouse at Parker River. They were then brought along a track by bullock cart to the Station – 6 kilometres.
I am so glad I never had to live through those early pioneer times because I cannot imagine how difficult life would have been.
During World War 1 the light station was used by the Royal Australian Navy as a lookout station to keep surveillance on Bass Strait shipping. They all lived in bush tents.
At the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939 the Cape Otway Light Station became part of a chain of Naval War Signal Stations located at strategic points along the Australian coastline.
At Cape Otway during the war the naval complement were able to use the Telegraph Station as their living quarters. Kerosine lamps provided light as electric lighting in the quarters was not available until November 1942 when generators at the Radar Station provided power. Before then the signalmen had to pedal bicycles to power the dynamo and generate electricity. The Navy ceased using the station in late 1944.
By 1945 telegraphy usage rate peaked at 35 million telegrams. However, by 1975 telephone services were cheaper. In 1993 Australia Post discontinued the use of the telegram service.
The Doherty Organ (photo) is housed in the renovated Telegraph Station. Its history is fascinating. No one is quite sure how the Doherty Organ came all the way from Canada to find itself at the Cape Otway Telegraph Station. It is a very impressive piece.
Most seem to think that it survived the shipwreck of Eric the Red on 4 September 1880 at Cape Otway. Eric the Red was travelling from New York laden with exquisite pieces to be showcased at the 1st International Exhibition being held in Melbourne at the newly constructed Exhibition Building in Carlton. Melbourne had become the greatest city in Australia, and one of the fastest growing cities in the world.
Originally, the Exhibition Building occupied 20 acres and cost 200,000 pounds. Today, only the main hall remains.
William Doherty began making organs in 1868. He was born near Bradford in Ontario Canada in 1841. By 1875 a large factory was built and 100 organs a month were being manufactured.
We then moved outside and ventured towards the lighthouse and café section. We passed the Cape Otway Plaques which is another fascinating story.
The plaque commemorates the landmark of the disappearance of Frederick Valentich on 21 October 1978. He was flying a Cessna 182L and, at the point of Cape Otway, he changed direction to the south from the lighthouse to the sea.
Twelve minutes flying south at precisely 19:12:28 (7:12pm) radio transmission was cut off and in his last contact he said: “That strange aircraft is hovering over me again, and it is not an aircraft.”
An extensive land and sea search was carried out, but no trace was ever found of either the Cessna (call sign VH-DSJ) or of Frederick Valentich. To this day it remains a mystery.
I kind of remember the news story about this when I was younger, but in those days, I didn’t take all that much notice of the News.
Onto the Lighthouse itself but we were disappointed that it wasn’t open for tourists. Apparently, they had a minor earthquake recently and it caused the spill of mercury inside the lighthouse. Until it can be completely cleaned up it will remain closed as a public hazard.
The lighthouse part of Cape Otway was built in 1848, the second lighthouse on the mainland and the oldest surviving one. It is designed to show a light that could be seen 48 kilometres away. Using the light the ships would have to ‘thread the eye of the Needle’ – a 90-kilometre gap between Cape Otway and King Island.
We then had Devonshire Tea at the café before continuing on with our tour.
Few people today are aware of the war at sea which raged along the Australian coastline during World War 2. Naval and merchant seamen were losing their lives only a few kilometres beyond our beaches. This part of the war was largely kept from the public to prevent panic and loss of morale.
In the years between World War I and World War II, several nations experimented with the concept of submarine-borne aircraft. The United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, and France all experimented with the idea, and several specialized aircraft were developed in the course of the tests. Several submarines were converted for aircraft operations, which included experiments on the best method to transport the aircraft. Most of the nations that conducted such tests, however, dropped the experiments and never progressed to the point of putting the concept into operational use.
The exception was Japan. Naval leaders in Tokyo were quick to recognize the value of submarine-based reconnaissance aircraft that could be used over the vast expanses of the Pacific. The Japanese Navy tested two purpose-built planes to gain experience in operating aircraft from submarines, and to test various methods for transporting the planes. One of these submarines was I-25.
One of I-25‘s missions was to reconnoitre the Australian harbours of Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, followed by the New Zealand harbours of Wellington and Auckland. On 17 February 1942, Nobuo Fujita took off in the “Glen” for a reconnaissance flight over Sydney Harbour to examine the city’s airbase. By 07:30, he had returned to I-25, disassembled the “Glen” and stowed it in the water-tight hangar.
The next mission was a similar flight over Melbourne, Australia. Fujita took off from Cape Wickham on King Island at the western end of Bass Strait, about halfway between Victoria and Tasmania. The floatplane was launched on 26 February at 3AM for its flight to Melbourne over Port Phillip Bay. During the flight, Fujita recorded details of the bayside industrial areas and shipping activity, as well as noting the presence of one light cruiser, and five destroyers.
Fujita’s next reconnaissance flight in Australia was over Hobart on 1 March. I-25 then headed for New Zealand, where Fujita flew a reconnaissance flight over Wellington on 8 March. He flew over Auckland on 13 March, followed by Fiji on 17 March. The submarine returned to its base at Kwajalein on 31 March.
The Radar Station at Cape Otway was not in operation at the time of this flight, or the result of the mission may have been very different.
World War Two exploded into Australian waters on November 7, 1940, when the British steamer Cambridge hit a mine off Wilsons Promontory in Eastern Victoria.
Less than 24 hours later the US merchant ship City of Rayville was torn apart six miles off Cape Otway. Both ships were destroyed. Each wreck claimed a life.
Australians suddenly had a real sense of being at war with Nazi Germany – the war was no longer a remote event in Europe.
Both ships fell victim to mines laid by the Passat, a vessel that slipped 40 mines into waters off Cape Otway. Ultimately, the actions of mine-laying German surface raiders, Japanese submarines and aircraft claimed 41 allied ships in Australian waters.
Most attacks took place between 1942-44 when Japanese submarines prowled the eastern and northern seaboards. By day they hid at sea beyond the continental shelf in deep water and approached the coast by night or in rough weather.
The most tragic loss on the eastern coast was the torpedoing of the hospital ship AHS Centaur on May 14, 1943, with the loss of 268 lives.
The Royal Australian Air Force built a radar station at Cape Otway Light station in 1942 to keep watch for the enemy.
Under a veil of secrecy No. 13 Radar Station was built at Cape Otway in 1942 – its operators were the “Eyes of the Fighter Sector”. Their prime purpose – the detection and interception of the enemy.
In 1939 the Australian Government believed Australia was not under threat of invasion, but there was a need to prepare for “sporadic raids”. Their plan was to use 1930s British radar technology. The recent introduction of radiolocation was possibly the greatest scientific change to warfare in 200 years.
In theory it was the most superior method of detecting enemy positions, could be used in any weather, was virtually invisible, could detect small objects up to 150 miles away and accurately plot their locations.
In practise it took operators, working from a Doover (Australian slang for an operative radar set), dedication and ingenuity to get results.
At their peak there were 124 separate RAAF radar units in operation in mainland Australia and the Pacific Islands, and No. 13 was one of four in Bass Strait – the others were at Wilsons Promontory, Metung and Gabo Island.
Data collected from these stations was sent by wireless telegraphy to the top-secret Air Defence Headquarters at 7FS Preston, Melbourne. Cape Otway, the first radar station on the southern coast, transmitted its ‘secret’ information to Headquarters by a ‘party line’ telephone shared with Otways’ farmers.
Information was plotted on the main operations board so aircraft could be dispatched to investigate or engage unidentified or hostile aircraft, ships or submarines.
During No.13 Radar Station’s four years of operation there were up to 50 RAAF personnel stationed at Cape Otway.
The radar and barracks drew power from two 25KA generators powered by Ford V8 engines housed in separate bunkers behind the Radar Station which operated 24 hours a day from May 1942 to September 1944. After that it operated with reduced hours until June 1946. Operators worked 8-hour shifts and spent alternate 30-minute periods in front of the radar screen.
After the sinking of the ships in Bass Strait the Royal Australian Navy swept the area for any remaining mines. Some were destroyed and other washed ashore. The really scary part of this story is that, from German war records, some of these mines have still not been accounted for.
This part of the war holds a place close to our family. My mum’s brother, Laurence Francis Pickup, was a Leading Aircraftsman in the RAAF. He was stationed at Mallala in South Australia where there was a training school for pilots. On 3 June 1942 his aircraft (six people on board) was sent out into the area off Cape Willoughby, Kangaroo Island, to investigate the possible sighting of a Japanese submarine. They used this flight as a training run. He was 26 years old, and nothing has ever been found of them or their plane.
During the operation of the Radar Station no light station or Navy personnel were allowed on the top-secret base ay Cape Otway. However, it is known that the light house keeper’s children visited with them often.
We finally headed back to the car park and started our return journey to Colac. I was reading to Russ as he drove when he pulled over at the side of the road, did a U-tun and headed back the way we had come. His explanation was that ‘you will want to see this’.
‘This’ turned out to be Cheryle and Brad’s house at Forrest. Brad has created the most incredible sculptures out of bicycle and horseshoe parts. They are all the way around their house and in the back yard where Cheryle invited me for a look. I don’t think any of the photos did them justice as they were all so close together that they spoilt the beauty of the next piece.
Their dog, Honey, yapped the entire time I visited, and Cheryl advised me that if I went inside, she would be on my lap before I could properly sit down.
The creations are a lot of dragons in various shapes and sizes, including a Chinese Dragon that took my breath away. Brad, unfortunately, does not sell them!
They also had a huge Pegasus in the front garden which was the victim of the cyclonic winds from the other week. The big tree in their front garden came down and crushed it. Brad has it removed to the back yard and plans to fix it once more.
The other item he creates is globes made from horseshoes, some big enough for people to stand inside. They all have secret doors in them. One even has a seat that most people step into and use so that a photo can be taken of them inside it. I wasn’t offered the chance but Cheryl was happy to guide me around their extensive holding so I could see all the elk horn ferns on trees, and their garden ornaments.
