Aire Valley Guest House is just 5kms from the turnoff for the Cape Otway Lighthouse. Along the spectacular road to the light house, koalas can be seen in the gum trees adjacent to the road. In the mornings and evenings wallabies are often spotted bouncing off into the Great Otway National Park.
The Cape Otway Lighthouse was built in 1848 and is the oldest lighthouse on mainland Australia. It marks the entrance to Bass Strait from the Southern Ocean. The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1994 and replaced by a solar powered fully automated beacon so the Lighthouse and the buildings around the lighthouse are now a museum with exhibits from the many shipwrecks around the area.
Also at the lighthouse is the Telegraph Station built in 1859 and recently restored. This was built to house Australia's first submarine telegraph cable linking Tasmania to the mainland.
There is also the World War II Radar Bunker which was operated from 1942 to 1946. Did you know that the first American casualties in World War II were off the coast of Cape Otway? The City of Rayville was sunk by a German mine!
