Cape Otway Lighthouse

Cape Otway Lightstation
Location Victoria, Australia
Coordinates 38°51′26″S 143°30′42″E / 38.85722°S 143.51167°ECoordinates: 38°51′26″S 143°30′42″E / 38.85722°S 143.51167°E
Year first lit 1848
Deactivated 1994
Construction Sandstone
Tower shape Conical
Markings / pattern White
Height 20 m
Focal height 52 m
Original lens First order Fresnel
Intensity White 1,000,000 cd; Red 4,000 cd
Range 26 nautical miles (48 km)

Cape Otway Lighthouse is a lighthouse on Cape Otway in southern Victoria, Australia. It is Australia's oldest lighthouse still in work today.[1] During winter to spring, the lighthouse can be served as a vintage point for land-based whale watching as migrating whales swim very close to shores.

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;[2] it was the second lighthouse completed on mainland Australia and it remains the oldest surviving lighthouse in mainland Australia.[3][4] 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.[5] 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.

Eight ships were wrecked along the coast of Cape Otway.[6] 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 It has been replaced by a low powered solar light in front of the original tower[3] whose focal plane is at 73 m above sea level. Its light characteristic is three white flashes every 18 seconds.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Cape Otway. Otways Accommodation. retrieved on 09 June 2014
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rowlett, Russ. "Lighthouses of Australia: Victoria". The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "The Cape Otway Lighthouse". Lighthouses of Victoria. Lighthouses of Australia Inc.
  4. ↑ Cape Otway Lightstation
  5. ↑ Australia’s iconic lighthouses, Australian Geographic, 26 July 2010
  6. ↑ Australia's Great Ocean Road. Shipwrecks

External links