Day 135 - Port Campbell, 9th November 2025

Packed up this morning and we were off on our way to Port Campbell. The day looks just as dreary as yesterday but at least the rain has stopped.

We made our way to Cape Otway to visit the lighthouse, built in 1948 it is the oldest surviving lighthouse on the Australian mainland. 

There is a dinosaur exhibit with fossils from millions of years ago that have been found in the region.

We went inside the old telegraph station and had a look around. It was built in 1859 to link the mainland with Tasmania via a 386 kilometre cable which failed after two years. It was then used as a Signal Station using signal flags to communicate with ships. It was also used as a school and as the lightkeeper’s accommodation. It is amazing to think that at times multiple families lived here with their nine or ten children!

We walked around the heritage precinct, looking at the old buildings and enjoying a cuppa out of the wind in the cafe that used to be lightkeeper’s accommodation.

We walked down to get a better look at the lighthouse. Unfortunately it was closed for restoration so we weren’t able to climb it or get up too close.

We had a quick stop in Laver’s Hill,

and then continued on to Port Campbell where we are stopping for the next two nights. It’s a cool little park, great facilities, rabbits everywhere and walking distance to town or the lookout via the suspension bridge.

We set up, and then, as the afternoon looked like it had dined up, we headed out to check out some of the sights. First stop was the 12 Apostles. We parked and then walked down to the lookout near Gibson’s Steps. Unfortunately you can’t walk down the steps anymore but the view from the lookout was still pretty impressive.

From there we went to the 12 Apostles, although there’s debate about whether there actually was 12 to begin with!

Next stop was Loch Ard Gorge and we did all the walks from the car park. In fact by the end of the day we had walked over 12 kilometres! Our first walk was to the Tom and Eva Lookout, named after the only two survivors of the shipwreck in 1878.  Thomas Pearce and Eva Carmichael were the only survivors of the 54 people on board the Loch Ard when it became shipwrecked here in 1878.

We then walked down to the Razorback, a rock formation with sharp edges and bumps caused by wind blown spray.

A bit further around we came to the Island Arch Lookout,

and then to the Muttonbird Island Lookout.

We continued on to the blowhole lookout, Poombeeyt Koontapool, which means ‘Breath of the Whale’ in the Keerray Woorroong language.

Next we headed to Thunder Caves, the entrance to which used to be an arch like London Bridge before collapsing.

The walk took us past the cemetery where there were a lot of old gravesites and a memorial to Eva’s seven family members who died in the Loch Ard shipwreck.

12 kilometres later we made it back to town. We were going to have dinner in town but everything was closed so  we headed back to our vans for a late dinner. Ian went to do a bit of squidding at the pier while we had showers. When he returned, (unfortunately empty handed), we had a quick game of cards before heading to bed.