Winding back the clock
THE Otway Ranges contain a small network of coach routes dating back to the 1800s as proof of a time before the building of the Great Ocean Road after World War I.
This columnist has driven on one of these, the Old Coach Road, at the back of Apollo Bay which emerges at Skenes Creek, in the course of his duty as a reporter for the Geelong Advertiser many years ago in what was a memorable and hairy drive.
Horse-drawn coaches held sway throughout the Western District until the arrival of the railway in the later 1800s.
The railway service from Melbourne to Geelong was extended gradually westward, with the line from Geelong to Colac opened in 1877.
The railway was further extended to Camperdown and Terang in stages to 1887 and eventually to Warrnambool and Port Fairy in 1890.
This saw the coach routes retreat further into the hinterland, with timetables tailored to coincide with the arrival of the first and last trains of the way at stations such as Winchelsea.
Horse-drawn coaches nevertheless provided a valuable service carrying mail to townships such as Lorne.
The Royal Mail Coach to Lorne, as it was known, met the rail service alternatively at Winchelsea and Birregurra.
Previously these townships had been overnight stops for the coaches, hence the hotel at Birregurra was named the Royal Mail.
According to former Geelong Historic Records Centre (now Geelong Heritage Cen- tre) archivist Norman Houghton, the last mail coach runs from Deans Marsh Railway Station to Lorne took place in 1921.
By then work had started on the Great Ocean Road. Apart from providing road access to isolated coastal townships, the building of the road was seen as a means to provide work for servicemen returning from World War I.
A meeting had been held in Colac in March, 1918, where then Mayor of Geelong Howard Hitchcock moved that a Great Ocean Road Trust be formed to raise funds for the building of the road.
The road was envisaged to run from Barwon Heads to Warrnambool, although there are rival claims for where the road starts including Torquay and the archway at Eastern View. Contact: peterjohnbegg@gmail.com