The Cape Otway Lightstation was completed in 1848. Because of its inaccessibility the lighthouse keepers received all supplies by sea until 1937 – supplies were landed at Blanket Bay.

Along this section of track there are fine examples of kangaroo apples. These tall shrubs have thin leaves that are shiny above and a paler colour beneath. They have large pink flowers with a yellow centre during spring and summer. Their name comes from the large yellow/orange fruits favoured by many native birds and animals.

Why is there a house down here? It’s a bit of an anomaly really, having a private house so close to the beach and National Park! The story we’ve been told is that the present owner’s grandparents bought a stretch of land from Johanna Beach to Moonlight Head back in the 1920s. The parks service has been trying to buy it back ever since but to no avail. Then they discovered some years back that the house was actually built in the park and not on private land. The owners were told to demolish it immediately, but after much negotiation they were allowed to keep the house as long they allowed public access through their land to the beach! The grandparents are buried in the Moonlight Head cemetery.

The Ryans Den Great Ocean Walk campsite has 8 sites, tank water, picnic tables, toilets and a kitchen shelter.

This is a superb spot for whale watching between June and September as these huge mammals head to warmer waters to give birth (June), or head back to their feeding grounds in Antarctica (September). Sealers, whalers and other seamen were here in the early part of the 19th century. They hunted Southern Right Whales, which you are most likely to see today. Right whales are large, heavy-bodied animals with thick blubber. Theyare so named for the combination of high-yielding oil from their blubber, and the fine baleen (whale bone), making them the “right” whales to hunt. The oil provided lamp fuel and wax for candles, and the baleen was used for corsets, umbrellas and hoops for women’s dresses. Southern Right Whales could be very dangerous to whalers, with some whales over 20m in length and weighing as much as 25 elephants. Whaler’s ships carried 28-35 men and 6 whaleboats. The whaleboats were only 9m in length by 1.5m wide. When a whale was spotted they yelled “there she blows”. Chases could last from hours to days. Eventually a harpoon would be thrown into the whale and the rope tied to boat.

On the other side of the road, there’s a boardwalk on crossing some wetlands. There are interpretive signs to help you identify the many birds that inhabit these wetlands. If you are tired and want to get picked up earlier, you could follow the boardwalk up into the Princetown settlement. There’s a phone here as well as a pub. It takes about 10 mins to walk there. Note that if you take this option you’ll miss out on seeing the 12 Apostles.

Beside the lookout at Gibson Steps are a set of 86 steps built in the 1800s by Hugh Gibson of Glenample Homestead, to access the beach below. The two offshore stacks, called Gog and McGog, are some of the 12 Apostles. Stacks like this are formed when waves lash a headland, eroding it from both sides until an arch forms. Erosion continues until the arch collapses, leaving stacks behind.

The cliffs around here began to form 10-20 million years ago under the sea from a build up of skeletons of countless millions of tiny marine animals. When the sea levels retreated, the soft limestone was exposed to the wild seas and winds of the Southern Ocean.

A picture postcard beach that is a fitting end to the effort required to reach it. Presided over by the imposing bulk of Moonlight Head the sand gives way to a tessellated green sandstone platform that may be explored in calm conditions and low tides.
The highly photographable anchors of the Marie Gabrielle and Fiji provide haunting reminders of the power of the ocean and the Shipwreck History woven into the very fabric of the coast.

Birregurra is delightful and absolutely oozes country charm. Food produced in these hills has a freshness and honesty rarely found in modern products. The town itself is charming, with wonderfully restored facades on buildings giving it a historic and reminiscent feel.