Cape Otway Lighthouse- Lightkeeper Shipwreck Discovery Tours

From March, international and Australian travel agents will be able to sell tourists a two-hour adventure tour, including four wheel drive travel into the Great Otway National Park, as part of the Lightkeeper Shipwreck Discovery Tours.

Geared to take tourists off the beaten track and to immerse them in the natural and man-madehistory of the Cape, the tour will include koala and wallaby spotting, plus sites of significance to the early lightkeepers. The tour will take in the Parker River inlet, the original difficult landing point for infrequent Cape Otway Lighthouse supplies. The Cape's sands and tides regularly reveal the ribs and an anchor of the shipwrecked Eric the Red.Tourists will also visit Blanket Bay where the stone chimney ruins of a lighthouse storage shed stand in the dunes, and the rotting timbers of a Lightstation jetty.

After scones, jam, cream and a pot of tea or coffee in the Lightkeeper's Cafe, the guided tour will continue in the Lightstation grounds -including a climb to the top of the lighthouse, the Telegraph Station and World War two radar bunker.

The tour package, which can be extended with meals and accommodation in the historic lightkeepers' cottages, will be sold by travel agents and visitor information centres. Prices are $35.95 for adults, $32.95 for concessions and $20.95 for children. Businesses wanting to offer Discovery Tour packages to their guests should contact the Cape Otway Lighthouse.

Otway ghost hunt on

A PARANORMAL ghost hunt is just one of the activities on offer at Cape Otway Lightstation during a weekend of celebrations.

Plays, meals and a musical performance will also be organised between August 15 and 17 as part of the International Lighthouse Weekend.

Australian Ghost Adventures will lead after-dark ghost tours at 7pm on Saturday, August 16, in a bid to spot the lightstation's resident spooks, the Lady in Grey and Mrs Riches.

Tour leader Gary Sullivan said: "There are no guarantees that there is going to be a ghost, but we have definitely had some activity during previous visits to the lightstation."

The lightstation will host a winemaker's dinner on Friday, August 15.

The next day will offer dramatic re-enactments, weather station tours, a three-course dinner, and a performance from the Apollo Bay Community Choir.
Dinner theatre play The Keeper will be performed on the Saturday and Sunday.
For prices and details call the Lighthouse on 5237 9240.

www.lightstation.com

Jane Harper

August 9th, 2008

I certainly believe there's something of a paranormal nature there."

IT'S official - Cape Otway Lightstation is a paranormal hot spot according to Haunted Australia. They're so excited by the "orbs" captured on infra-red film and electronic voice phenomena recorded during their August visit to the Lightstation they have withheld the story from their regular Channel 31 TV slot.
Haunted Australia's Gary Sullivan said the footage will appear in a special edition DVD box-set. "We caught quite a few orbs on film and usually we can explain them - they're dust or moisture or insects," he said" But when we examine the evidence frame-by-frame you can work out that it's not any
of the usual suspects. "In the Telegraph Station we had an orb that floated across the top of two of our team members and went straight into the pantry," he added. "The verdict at this stage is, I certainly believe there's something of a paranormal nature there."

Modern communications such as mobile phones and terrestrial television haven't quite made it to Cape Otway and yet in 1864 Morse Code operators could get a message to Melbourne in minutes.

Mary Anne Bedford, arriving on the Champion of the Seas, said in 1864: "We were awakened about 4 o'clock by the shouting of land. It was Cape Otway about 100 miles from Melbourne and there is a lighthouse on it.
As it is we have been rocking about all day and they have turned the vessel around eight or nine times today to keep us off the land. They have gone very close to it and we could see the lighthouse. Our captain put up many flags. They put up theirs and they let us know that the Anglesea had landed on Sunday the 13th... They telegraphed from here to Melbourne to let them know of our arrival. They would hear from us in four minutes from the time they telegraphed Melbourne."
(Soure: Beacons of Hope)