moresueandstevestravels: 13 FEBRUARY 2016: GREAT OCEAN ROAD 3: GEELONG

On the road again, and headed for our last day on the Great Ocean Road.

More stunning views......

......from more Scenic Lookouts.

Lorne:

'Gathered where the Erskine leaps/Down the road to Lorne': ('Flowers', Rudyard Kipling 1891)

'the most fashionable town on the Great Ocean Road': (Lonely Planet)

Split Point Lighthouse (Aireys Inlet):

"The keeper at Split Point at Airey's Inlet in Victoria did not exactly sleep on the job but he did not see why he should be deprived of his social life at night. He scratched a small hole in the black paint on the back of the lantern, which prevents the light shining inland and annoying residents. This keeper, Richard Joy Baker, scratched the hole to line up with the Airey's Inlet Hotel. Each time the lenses rotated, the light winked through the hole, assuring the keeper (who had retired to the hotel) that all was well."

( Gordon Reid 'From Dusk Till Dawn')

Originally named Eagles Nest Point, this lighthouse was constructed in 1891.and was converted to automatic operation in 1919. The original Fresnel lens is still in use but it is to be hoped a replacement will never be needed as the Birmingham factory where the lens was built was bombed during war-time and the essential formula for making the unique lens crystal was lost!

Since 2005 regular guided tours have been on offer but none of us wanted to climb the 132 steps involved but we were all up for ice creams and drinks. Once we made it clear we did not want the tour, staff in the gift shop were brusque and unhelpful, and numerous signs dotting the entrance site, told us there was no right of access to view the light house at all in any way other than the guided tour. A gate and chain attempted, with ultimately no success, to close off access to what turned out to be a public footpath. Such wilful obstruction did not endear us, or clearly the many others there that afternoon, to spending any money in the shop.

Torquay:

In the 1960s and 1970s Torquay was just another sleepy seaside town but it is now the undisputed capital of the Australian surf industry, home to Rip Curl and Quicksilver.

But you don't have to be a surfer to appreciate the beauty of the beaches.

And it has a very good ice cream parlour!

Geelong:

Geelong has always been a 'must-see' on this journey as Louise spent a very happy 5 months here at Deakin University and recommended the area to us.

It was also an opportunity to meet, for the first time, 2 of the people here who had made her stay so enjoyable and successful: Professor Tiffany Walsh (her PhD supervisor at Warwick and Deakin) and Liz Thompson (her landlady in Geelong). we really enjoyed spending time with them both and it was a pleasure to be able to put faces to names.

Brief history:

The Wathaurong People were Geelong’s first residents and they originally called the bay “Jillong” and the surrounding land “Corayo”. The name Jillong has a meaning similar to “a place of the sea bird over the white cliffs”. Somehow we got it all mixed up and now call the land Geelong and the bay Corio.

The first recorded European to visit the Geelong region was Lt John Murray, who sailed the Lady Nelson, who on February 1st 1802 sent a party led by John Bowen to explore the region. Murray returned a few days later and claimed the entire region for Britain. But it is thought Murray might not have been the first European to sail into Corio Bay, others including the Dutch, Portuguese or Spanish might have been in the region centuries earlier.

Matthew Flinders, sailed into Corio Bay on the 27 April 1802. He charted the entire bay, including the Geelong area. If not the first, one of the earliest reported deaths of an Aboriginal person by Europeans occurred in October of 1803 when the First Lieutenant JH Tuckey and his party camped in the area around North Shore.

In its early days Geelong’s main trade was in wool and the city was important as a port. Much of the Geelong waterfront was surrounded by huge wool stores, some still remain today being redesigned for modern use including the Deakin University Waterfront Campus. Woollen mills saw Geelong’s first big manufacturing industry and in 1925 it became the centre of Ford’s manufacturing facilities with a huge plant opening in North Geelong in 1926.

The 1850′s saw a turning point for Geelong which, with its wool prosperity, was starting to gain a bit of ground on Melbourne, but Melbourne ran a campaign dubbing Geelong “the Sleepy Hollow” which stuck with the town nearly 100 years. There are also stories of a false map put out by Melbourne traders that showed Melbourne much closer to the goldfields than Geelong was. Some believe it was this map that fooled many of the Gold Seekers and enticed them to spend their fortunes in Melbourne. Melbourne won the day and developed much faster than “sleepy” Geelong.

Through the World Wars and through to the mid 70’s Geelong’s manufacturing boomed, but with the change in markets and modern needs much of the industry slowed with many jobs lost. But with new investment and new opportunities Geelong has looked to the future transforming its heavy reliance on industry, thousands of new jobs having been created in health, education, services, retail, business, hospitality and tourism.

The historic waterfront precinct has undergone extensive refurbishment during the past decade ..........

......not least with its troop of over 100 colourful baywalk bollards, made out of wharf pylons (many recovered from the Yarra Street Pier that was destroyed by fire in the 1980s), painted by local artist Jan Mitchell. The wood was first sculpted then painstakingly hand-painted. They depict many of the events and people associated with the Geelong area.