Cape Otway - History

History

Cape Otway was originally inhabited by the Gadubanud people; evidence of their campsites is contained in the middens throughout the region. The Cape was discovered by Europeans when Lieutenant James Grant made the first west to east passage through Bass Straight in the Lady Nelson in December 1800. Grant named it Cape Albany Otway after Captain William Albany Otway. This was later shortened to Cape Otway. The government reserved the tip of the cape as the site for a lighthouse. Access to the site was difficult, it was eventually reached overland and construction of the Cape Otway Lightstation began in 1846 from stone quarried at the Parker River.

The light was first lit in 1848 using a first order Fresnel lens; it was the second lighthouse completed on mainland Australia and it remains the oldest surviving lighthouse in mainland Australia. It was decommissioned in January 1994 after being the longest continuous operating light on the Australian mainland. At the keeper's cottages of Apollo Bay, accommodation is available in two double studios or in the head keeper's cottage that will sleep groups ranging from two to sixteen people. A telegraph station was added to the site when Tasmania was connected to the mainland by a submarine telegraph line from Cape Otway to Launceston in 1859. Parts of the Cape were also open to free settlers.

Eight ships were wrecked along the coast of Cape Otway. These included the Marie (1851), Sacramento (1853), Schomberg (1856), Loch Ard (1878), Joseph H. Scammell (May 1891), Fiji (September 1891) and the Casino in 1932. The first American vessel sunk during World War II, the SS City of Rayville, was also sunk off the Cape by a German mine. Following this, the Americans built a radar bunker on the cape in 1942; it is now open to the public.

The lightstation was decommissioned in January 1994 after being the longest continuous operating light on the Australian mainland. It has been replaced by a low powered solar light in front of the original tower whose focal plane is at 73 m above sea level. Its light characteristic is three white flashes every 18 seconds.