Our forebears in the Victorian era did dream and build big! … think burger with the lot – and don’t forget the pickle! … and our Victorian Victorians were way up there with the best of them. Indeed, their bold thinking – backed by gold from Ballarat and Bendigo, and endless wool from the Western District – catapulted Marvellous Melbourne to be one of the world’s top 5 wealthiest cities within 50 years of its founding. They dreamed and built with limitless confidence in ‘making stuff happen’.
Not to be outdone by their city counterparts, the early citizens of Lorne dreamed and schemed with the best of them … conjuring their own grand ‘Otway Castles in the Air’! Three schemes of early Lorne come directly to mind: Lorne by sea; Lorne by rail; and possibly the most enigmatic of the three, Lorne by lakeside!
‘Lorne by sea’ was obvious, for the sea was the preferred access for the town’s first half century – the only alternative an arduous, painfully slow, and commonly deeply bogged Cobb & Co coach from the Deans Marsh railhead. The first pier, built from the finest Otway timber in 1878, soon circumvented the dangerous, often disastrous unloading of ketches and schooners on the main beach, and offered a relatively safe mooring for regular visits by ketch, schooner, and steamer. This more regular service encouraged both an inflow of supplies and a burgeoning stream of visitors to Lorne’s guest-houses and hotels, while the return journey allowed timber to be transported back to Geelong and Melbourne.
Even so, the pier was unprotected and open to the Bass Strait swells. Mooring, unloading, and reloading were difficult and often dangerous. While land access was considered the better long-term solution, the pre-automobile days of horse-drawn carriages through glutinous Otway mud were fraught. Furthermore, land transport in the late 1800’s was still dominated by ‘the iron horse’. Rail was the answer to everything … the 19th century pre-cursor to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s “42”.
True to the times, Lorne nearly did score a railhead! Regional political manoeuvrings to achieve rail access began in 1880 and reached fever pitch by 1883/4. The Geelong Advertiser regularly spruiked the virtues of ‘a Railway to Lorne’, citing:
- Few if any ‘engineering difficulties’
- An abundance of splendid timber and stone for its construction
- A gentle average gradient of 1:130 [Duneed to Peter’s Hill] then a gentle decline to Lorne of 1:85
- A ‘very moderate’ construction cost’
It also claimed extensive benefits:
- An abundance of firewood for Geelong’s consumption
- Splendid timber and stone for building
- Coal supplies in cost-effective quantity
Moreover, wasn’t Lorne:
- A first-rate watering-place for invalids and pleasure seekers
- Blessed with a salubrious climate, with grand scenery close-by
- A suitable bathing-place
- Already attracting hundreds of visitors, yet scores more are debarred its pleasures through lack of access
Give Lorne a railway, the Addy said, and:
- hotels, boarding-houses, restaurants, shops, stores, banks, other businesses, private dwellings will proliferate
- academies for education of youth, and convalescent-homes and cottages for the sick will come
- Lorne will be known far and wide as a great ‘rendezvous’
Indeed, how could it be otherwise when:
- Lorne has a higher winter average temperature than Melbourne, Geelong, or Ballarat ‘by some ten or twelve degrees’
And, boldly at the end:
- The Lorne line would be one of the best paying lines in Victoria!
‘The Lorne Railway League’ made multiple representations directly to the Minister and Parliament, led by some heavy-hitting Geelong and Lorne luminaries who added more supporting arguments:
- ten thousand acres of very fine agricultural soil is tenanted by farmers along its route
- the district abounds in messmate, mountain ash, and blackwood timber
- potatoes, oats, butter, cheese would be produced ‘in abundance’ for the markets
- ‘snowflake potatoes’ [18-tons/acre] grow in the Otway hills
Despite these increasingly strident pleas, unwelcome news came – wired from Melbourne – ‘the Geelong to Lorne line would not be included in the Railway Bill‘, and fired local indignation to a fever pitch. It was time for the final trump card: ‘… the line would allow for the defence of the coast‘ … but even it was played to no avail.
On Wednesday 13th May 1914, the Chief Railway Engineer for Victoria nailed tight ‘The Railway for Lorne’ coffin, by concluding: “… it cannot be said that the prospects for a railway to Lorne are good!”
Thirty five years on and still no railway … and still no negotiable road, either. 1914 saw both the end of Lorne’s railway dream, and the outbreak of the Great War. Then, a mere 6 months into WWI, the Geelong Advertiser ran an extraordinary story [Page 2: 1st February 1915 1] …
PROPOSED LAKE FOR LORNE [précised]
A high-level Geelong and Lorne Committee has: … petitioned the Minister to consider: ‘ the construction of a weir, 30 feet high, to dam the Little Erskine some 300 yards up from the head of the Rapids … forming a lake that could be built at a comparatively small cost. The stream carries a good deal of water through the valley down from Benwerrin, especially in winter. The Lake for Lorne Committee proposal includes: ‘… an intent to stock the proposed lake with fish; a claim that it would be suitable for boating; and notes it would be ‘three quarters of a mile long and widen out to a maximum 300 yards’. They further claimed that ‘… other than for labour, all that would be required would be some timber clearing and the provision of cement.’ Finally: ‘… the lake would add considerably to Lorne’s natural attractions.’
It appears that the Public Works Engineer: ‘… was favourably impressed, and promised to recommend that the Minister provide the necessary planning and construction funds’
However, as the Gallipoli campaign began in that very same month, the war had suddenly taken a serious turn. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Lake for Lorne Committee never heard back from the Minister and it is not known how or whether the idea was followed further.
After the Great War, as agitation for a railway from Geelong waned, as the building of the Great Ocean Road began, as enthusiasm for a seaport dwindled, and as the commercial timber industry shut down, Lorne turned its access hopes to the road and its industrial focus to fishing. As for Lake Lorne? … well, I am rather glad the Rapids remain as the Rapids, aren’t you?
John Agar
Reference – tinyurl.com/lakelorne
