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Cape Otway, Vic.

Cape Otway Light. Elevation 91 metres, visible 26 nautical miles (48 km), location is 38° 51' 26"S, 143° 20' 42"E. During the early nineteenth century ships sailing from the United Kingdom to Melbourne frequently followed a route making their first landfall on the Australian coast at the western end of Bass Strait. Given the difficulties and uncertainties of marine navigation at the time approaching these rough and dangerous shores at night or in bad weather was risky after weeks at sea and many ships were wrecked. The need for lighthouses had been recognised but colonial governors hadn't given the task enough priority to do anything until 1845 when the Cataraqui bound for Melbourne from Liverpool, England with over 400 people on board, struck King Island at the western approach to Bass Strait and immediately began breaking up in heavy seas. The Cataraqui struck at 4:30 in the morning and, according to one survivor, the ladders from lower decks to the upper deck were washed away quickly; anybody still below was drowned. There were 9 survivors. The replacement solar-powered light at Cape Otway has been installed to seaward of the original tower; it can just be seen behind the main tower in the heading photograph. The Admiralty in London decided that troop ships and convict ships should not attempt to negotiate Bass Strait until lighthouses had been built and recommended that immigrant ships should do the same. This official assessment put heavy pressure on Charles La Trobe, Superintendent of the Port Phillip District, to do something about a light on Cape Otway. But the cape was inaccessible from land and sea and the first requirement was to find a way to get there. La Trobe himself made two unsuccessful attempt. On the first he left from Colac and tried to penetrate the steep, heavily wooded hills to reach the coast; the going was far too steep for horses. A third attempt from the west found more open country but the terrain was much worse. La Trobe reached Cape Otway on foot and selected a site for the light but the route he had followed was entirely unsuitable for horse-drawn vehicles. Two attempts were needed to find a "tolerable road" from Colac, through present-day Forrest, to Mt Sabine, present-day Apollo Bay then to Cape Otway. A survey of Cape Otway had been made from the sea and a landing place found for materials and stores at the mouth of the Parker River, five kilometres away. Construction began in 1846 using sandstone quarried at the Parker River and conveyed to the site by bullock dray. Each of the curved stones forming the wall of the light tower was individually shaped by hand into the curve required so that stones fit together without mortar. Marks of the mason's tools can still be easily seen inside the tower. Internal stone steps were also individually shaped and keyed into the wall and each other.

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Cape Otway light was turned on for the first time in August 1848; this was the second lighthouse on the Australian mainland. The lantern had been made in England and delivered by sea. It contained 21 parabolic reflectors, each with its own wick lamp burning whale oil; the whole assembly being rotated by clockwork. In due course, kerosene was introduced before the light was electrified relying on a diesel generator then on mains electricity. The power of the light was increased in 1891, in 1905 and again in 1939. The beneficial impact of Cape Otway light on shipping was immeasurable. When it was first lit the light was a welcome and reliable beacon for ships at the end of a 12,000 kilometre voyage from the Cape of Good Hope. It became even more important as navigation techniques changed on the England to Australia route. Availability of accurate chronometers, at reasonable cost, allowed ship masters to determine their position at sea making it practicable to follow a shorter (therefore faster) route called a composite great circle route. Leaving England this took ships down the Atlantic Ocean, well south of the Cape of Good Hope, far south in the Indian Ocean into roaring westerly winds at latitudes 50° and 55° South, before turning towards Bass Strait and their destination in Melbourne or Sydney. Conditions sailing that far south were extremely unpleasant with waves washing over the upper deck of ships which often had to negotiate icebergs. Navigation under these circumstances was not always accurate and Cape Otway light became an even more welcome sight at the end of a voyage which last saw land in England. A new lighthouse built at Cape Wickham on the northern tip of King Island in 1861 complemented Cape Otway in marking the southern boundary of the 84 kilometre wide entrance to Bass Strait. At the northern boundary Cape Otway light flashed for three seconds with a 50 second pause, while Wickham was permanently illuminated. Lights usually identify themselves with a known flashing sequence but Wickham was permanently illuminated to make absolutely certain that mariners would not confuse the two lights. The existence of Cape Otway light didn't prevent ships running aground along the Victorian coast and some of the most famous shipwrecks occurred after the light began working. The wrecks of Schomberg in 1855 and Loch Ard in 1878 proved Bass Strait could be as dangerous as ever under the wrong conditions but a lighthouse on Cape Otway made sea travel far safer for thousands of crew and passengers sailing from England to Australia. After serving as Australia's longest continuously operating light the Otway light was decommissioned in 1994. The replacement was a solar-powered light mounted on a low tower on the seaward side of the original light tower. The new light is not as powerful as the original but light beacons are no longer the primary maritime navigation aids in the age of satellite navigators and radar. Cape Otway Telegraph Station

A few years after the lighthouse became operational Cape Otway became the site of a repeater station on the telegraphs line between Tasmania and Melbourne. A line had been built between Melbourne and Geelong in 1854 and the Tasmanian government agreed to a submarine cable via King Island between the colonies.

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The landline to Melbourne met the submarine cable to Tasmania at Cape Otway telegraph station, built 200 metres from the lighthouse in 1859. Operators at the telegraph station received messages on one line and repeated them on the other for onward transmission. Station staff and their families lived in the telegraph station building. The submarine cable failed after six months and was not repaired. The telegraph station became a Lloyds Signal Station reporting shipping movements to Melbourne via the telegraph. Each arriving vessel passed information to the signal station (including the date of the latest newspapers on board) which was relayed by telegraph as an arrival report. The telegraph station closed in the 1880s. Wartime Radar Station During the Second World War a radar station was built at Cape Otway after a merchant ship was sunk by a German-laid mine. The concrete blockhouse used to house the radar station remains among the trees near the lighthouse. Lighthouse Road Koala in tree near Lighthouse Road to Cape Otway. Cape Otway Light station is now served by Lighthouse Road, a bitumen road running from the Great Ocean Road. Lighthouse Road initially runs through mountain ash type of forest with tall and straight trunks. Approaching the Cape the trees change to the lower, more twisted, manna gums appreciated by koalas which can readily be seen from the road. Information. ¶   Lighthouses of Australia Bulletin 3/2004 ¶   Lighthouses of Australia - the Cape Otway Lighthouse ¶   Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service - Cataraqui, at http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=1769 accessed on 3 April 2010 ¶   Settlers Under Sail by Don Charlwood, Burgewood Books, Melbourne, 2002.

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