Hi again
Before we made it to the Great Ocean Road, we looked up some Missions Aviation Fellowship (MAF) friends.
Firstly, Sylvia and Neil Thomson near Geelong. We had shared some time with Sylvia and Neil at Elcho Island back in the 1990s.
From Geelong we headed west to Geoff and Cheryl Amery's dairy farm near Cobden. Both the Thomsons and Amerys were on the same MAF Orientation/Induction course as us in early 1990.
Tim Gunner first came to MAF Arnhem Land as the building maintenance person. He later got into teaching. He was staying at nearby Camperdown in 2007, so while visiting him he gave us a tour of the area including the now extinct volcano near the town.
One of the great pleasures of our travels has been looking up friends who we spend time living and working with in a remote outback community. There seems to be some sort of bond and an understanding of the issues of remoteness.
Nancy has always had a keen interest in lighthouses. So back tracking to the east, we visited the Cape Otway Lighthouse - built in 1848.
The coastal views from the lighthouse were well worth the detour.
Before modern navigation systems, lighthouses provided crucial services to the maritime industry. Ships coming across the Southern Ocean from the Cape of Good Hope usually dropped down further south into the Roaring Forties, a very favourable westerly wind. At just the right time they had to turn to the north east and track between Cape Otway and King Island in the Bass Strait as they approached Melbourne. After making their way across the Southern Ocean, they had not seen any land for a long time so relied totally on plotting their location via the stars. When the weather was not kind, they could not see the stars ...... hence navigation became a very imprecise science. Lighthouses could assist with this situation ........ if the visibility allowed the ship to see the lighthouse. During periods of really bad weather and low visibility, the tension levels on ships entering the Bass Strait back in those days must have been off the scale! Sadly, some did not make it, with much loss of life. More about shipwrecks along this coast later.
Before we get to the Great Ocean Road, a couple of wildlife photos. In many areas of Australia koalas are endangered however at the Kennett River we observed a good population - so much so that they were causing some gums trees to die.
Below the beautiful, energetic little blue wren.
Below is short video I have put together showing the Twelve Apostles and surrounding coast. I hope you enjoy it - this is a spectacular stretch of coastline.
Back to shipwrecks again. This 130 kms stretch of coast is estimated to have claimed almost 700 ships - mainly in the 1700s and 1800s. Only around 250 wrecks sites have been located. The photo below shows one of these sites. The 'Falls of Halladale' lies in 10 metres of water just off shore. Fog had obscured the coast which resulted in the vessel running aground.
Below the information board tells the sad story of 'The Falls of Halladale'. Thankfully, there was no loss of life with this incident.
For those of us who are not First Nations Australians, most of our ancestors came to Australia on a ship of some sort. My family seems to have been spared any members lost at sea, however thousands were not so fortunate. On my father's side, they arrived in Melbourne in the 1850s and on mum's side most arrived in Queensland in the 1880s. Mum's paternal grandmother, 17 year old Mary McNamara arrived in Queensland in December 1889 on the RMS Quetta. On the return journey to London, just two months later the Quetta hit an uncharted rock in the Torres Straits at night and sunk in 3 minutes, with 134 souls lost - a sobering reminder of the real risks of early maritime travel.
While we were somewhere near the western end of the Great Ocean Road we received news of Nancy's uncle passing away in Adelaide, so decided to change our plans and travel directly to Adelaide. While there, were stayed a while before moving up to the Murray River and the Flinders Rangers - more about that in the next posts.
Travel well
Bryan and Nancy
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