Cape Otway is a cape and a bounded locality of the

Colac Otway Shire The Shire of Colac Otway is a local government area in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, located in the south-western part of the state. It covers an area of and in June 2018 had a population of 21,503. It includes the towns ...

in southern

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

on the

Great Ocean Road The Great Ocean Road is an Australian National Heritage listed stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Allansford. Built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932 and dedicated t ...

; much of the area is enclosed in the

Great Otway National Park The Great Otway National Park is a national park located in the Barwon South West region of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated approximately southwest of Melbourne, Australia, Melbourne, in the Otway Ran ...

History

Cape Otway was originally inhabited by the

Gadubanud The Gadubanud (Katubanut), also known as the Pallidurgbarran, Yarro waetch or Cape Otway tribe ( Tindale), are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. Their territory encompasses the rainforest plateau and rugged coastline of ...

people; evidence of their campsites is contained in the

midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...

s throughout the region. The traditional

name for the cape is ''Bangurac''. The cape was charted by the British when Lieutenant James Grant sailed through Bass Strait in in December 1800. Grant named it Cape Albany Otway after Captain William Albany Otway. This was later shortened to Cape Otway. The British started to colonise the region in 1837 when

Joseph Gellibrand Joseph Tice Gellibrand (1792 – 1837) was the first Attorney-General of the British colony of Van Diemen's Land where he gained notoriety with his attempts to establish full rights of trial by jury. He became an integral part of the Port Philli ...

and George Hesse became lost in the Otways on an expedition. It was found that Hesse probably died of exposure, while Gellibrand was initially cared for by a local Aboriginal clan but later killed by members of another clan visiting from the

Apollo Bay Apollo Bay is a coastal town in southwestern Victoria, Australia. It is situated on the eastern side of Cape Otway, along the edge of the Barham River and on the Great Ocean Road, in the Colac Otway Shire. The town had a population of 1,790 at ...

area. The ship ''Joanna'' was wrecked near the Cape in 1843, with several survivors making a difficult journey by foot along the coast back toward Geelong. Mr Kearnon attempted to establish a livestock property at

Moonlight Head Moonlight Head is a locality located on the Great Ocean Road in southwest of Victoria on the Southern Ocean. It is believed to be the headland seen by Matthew Flinders from the '' Investigator'' during a break in showery weather, on the night o ...

in 1845 but his hut was burnt down and his shepherd supposedly killed by the resident Gadubanud people. More detailed exploration occurred in 1846 when a number of surveying expeditions entered the area with the view of placing a lighthouse upon Cape Otway. During these assignments, an Aboriginal man was attacked by colonists with stockwhips, while a surveyor's assistant by the name of James Conroy was killed by the Gadubanud. A reprisal force led by the surveyor and consisting of a well-armed militia of Barrabool men was organised by the district official Captain

Foster Fyans Foster Fyans (September 1790 – 23 May 1870) was an Irish military officer, penal colony administrator and public servant. He was acting commandant of the second convict settlement at Norfolk Island, the commandant of the Moreton Bay penal se ...

. This force exterminated almost completely the remaining Gadubanud population of around ten people. Cape Otway Lighthouse was built on the point of the cape in 1848. The lighthouse is listed on the

Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. H ...

. A telegraph office opened in 1859. The post office opened on 1 September 1880 and closed in 1972. Eight ships were wrecked along the coast of Cape Otway:Australia's Great Ocean Roa
Shipwrecks
The ''Marie'' (1851), ''Sacramento'' (1853), ''Schomberg'' (1855), ''

Loch Ard Loch Ard (Scottish Gaelic: Loch na h-Àirde) is a loch, located in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, Stirling council area, Scotland. Overview The name of the loch comes from ''àird'', the Scottish Gaelic word for a ''promontory, ...

'' (1878), '' Joseph H. Scammell'' (May 1891), ''Fiji'' (September 1891), and the ''Casino'' in 1932. The first American vessel sunk during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the '' MS 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.

Commercial fisheries

The hostile seas, where the Southern Ocean meets with Bass Strait, that surround Cape Otway are home to some of the world's most prized marine species, including

crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mu ...

and

abalone Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family (biology), family Haliotidae. Other common name In biology, a common name of a taxon o ...

. On calm days, as many as 20 abalone dive boats commonly operate along the shoreline beneath the lighthouse. Commercial crayfishers use baited pots or traps throughout the reef system, with white floats on the surface marking their locations.

Climate

Cape Otway has a

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...

(''Cfb'') with mild summers and cool damp winters, and only 38 clear days annually.

References

{{authority control Bass Strait Otway Ranges Otway Coastal towns in Victoria (Australia)

History

Commercial fisheries

Climate

See also

References