Visit parks and sleep at a lightstation.
The Great Ocean Road. Yes it is. Yes, it really is.
We happily leave the Grand Pacific Hotel and drive on a road that winds gently toward Erskine Falls in the hills above Lorne. Cars on both sides are stopped by workmen doing a controlled burn on the hillside. They wand flame throwers into the brush beneath trees, igniting a swath about 500 meters long and 15 meters deep. The brush burns fiercely with some flames about a meter high. The men douse some sections with water from trucks and then ignite another large swath.
Erskine Falls has so little water that we don’t bother to descend to its base. We get back in the car and return toward Lorne, passing the men burning the hillside. We drive through some residential areas on a hilltop where a small flock of white cockatoos is attacking garbage in front of a house. One bird sits on the second-floor railing, proudly snacking on whatever a large piece of tin foil contains.
We park at Teddy’s Lookout, which has a great vista of the road along the curving coast west of Lorne, as well as a few trails into a densely forested valley. We wander on a few of the paths and find our first koala contentedly scratching an ear with his hind leg. Click, click, click. Cynthia wants to bring one home.
We load back in the Camry and point it west on B100, the GOR, which was conceived for and built by about 3,000 shell-shocked, gassed and traumatized soldiers returning home from the Great War and hired by the Great Ocean Road Trust in the federal government’s belief that fresh air and hard work and visible accomplishment, plus an average wage of 10 shillings and sixpence per eight-hour day plus keep, would benefit the men and the state of Victoria. Its route was surveyed by John Hassett and two other guys for a year starting August 27, 1918 … and in small part paid for by its chief enthusiast, Howard Hitchcock, the mayor of Geelong who contributed more than 3,000 pounds of his own money (serious back in that day). Actual construction of the road began when Harry Lawson, the Premier of Victoria, detonated an explosive charge on September 19, 1919 (cant resist … that’s 91919 … better than Beachwood 45789 or are we being too Shirelle? … ouch! The song was sung by the Marvelettes).
The whole road is 244 kilometers long and, today, officially extends from Torquay, just south of Geelong, to Allensford, near Warrnambool to the west. When it was being built, the first part of the road, from Geelong to Lorne, after many delays and much griping by newspaper columnists in Melbourne and elsewhere, was completed (after many stories we’re omitting here) with great fanfare at Grassy Creek — speechifying by the governor of Victoria and the Oz PM Harry Lowe — on March 19, 1922. (We’re talking serious, back-breaking work with NONE of the equipment we might consider necessary. The road was built on the backs of some really Oz-type dudes.) The second part, from Lorne to, basically a bit after Port Campbell, was completed 10 years later, on November 26, 1932. Howard Hitchcock died three months prior to the second part’s completion and at that celebration, his chauffeur drove his car with its empty seat.
Initially, car travelers on the road had to pay tolls: two shillings and sixpence per car and one shilling and sixpence per additional passenger. Many drivers back in the day would stop outside the town of Shelly Beach where they would take their suitcases out of the cars and sneak down a hill to walk along the beach, connecting with their drivers on the other side of town. But Mrs. Wright, whose house, husband and three daughters were up the hill overlooking the beach, would run down and scold them on the sand … full-blown lecture on the wayward ways of shirking financial and moral responsibility.
We don’t pay a toll because the GOR Trust gave the road to the Victoria state government on October 2, 1936, and the state abolished the universally hated collection.
We go Kennett River, hopefully to see koalas and rosellas, which hang out in trees by the caravan park. Miraculously, we see a koala and numerous rosellas that flock to the seeds in people’s outstretched hands.
We motor on to Apollo Bay, where we do laundry in a laundromat while we scout local restaurants for carry-out food because our destination for the night — one of only five rooms at the Cape Otway Lightstation — is unmanned after five o’clock and offers only splendid isolation. David buys a bottle of Mumm’s champagne as a surprise for when we get to the Lightstation and Cynthia gets a roast chicken and salad to go.
We reach the gates to the Lightstation just as the last of its workers is leaving in a van. The driver hops out and confirms that we’re us, operates the heavy iron gates as a crowd of curious Chinese tourists gather around, and tells us how to find our accommodation after we’ve driven the 12 kilometers from the park’s now locked entrance to our accommodation.
The Lightstation is deserted and simply grand and beautiful in the dying light: It’s called a “station” because a lighthouse and several associated buildings dot grounds covering a few acres of forest and fields and paths through them. We can see the lighthouse at the end of a long grassy field, straight ahead. A telegraph station house sits on the side of a grassy field to our left, a World War II radar bunker up a hill to our right. Our room is part of three whitewashed stone buildings, and we unpack the car quickly. David mixes some G&Ts in wine glasses and we take them to wander some of the grounds together. David wanders down a path through some woods and sees his first wallaby, which bounds away by the time he signals to Cynthia to join him.
There’s a plaque in front of the telegraph station manager’s house. The plaque gives the story of Frederick Valentich who was flying his Cessna 182L on the evening of October 21, 1978. He was in touch with the lightstation as he flew 12 minutes south of the Ordway’s radar. At exactly 19:12:28, his radio cut off just after he said, “That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again, and it is not an aircraft.” The radar operator called up an extensive land and sea search but no trace of him or his plane was ever found. A mystery.
We return to our room and have a hot bird and a cold bottle. This place is romantic as all get out.
Another toll-free day Oz.
Two Tramps 