Otways Sites

Cumberland River

Photo: Lesley Kool

Cumberland River is the first Early Cretaceous fossil locality you encounter on your discovery tour of the Otway Ranges. Cumberland River is situated on the Otway Coast, southwest of Melbourne and is thought to have been named by surveyor George Smythe in 1846 after the Duke of Cumberland or the schooner Cumberland in which Charles Grimes explored Port Phillip and King Island in 1802-03 (Eric Bird 2006 “Place names on the Coast of Victoria” The Australian National Placename Survey ANPS).
Cumberland River was one of the areas visited by Dr. Tom Rich and his associates as part of their exploration of the Otway Coast between 1979 and 1980. At low tide the rocky shore platform is exposed and it was here that Tim Flannery found a partial plesiosaur rib, northwest of the Cumberland River bridge. The rib is the only fossil found at this location, even though the area has been re-prospected a number of times since then. However, the constant erosion by the wave action could expose new fossil bones at any time in the future.

Dinosaur Cove

Dinosaur Cove was discovered by Dr. Tom Rich and his associates in December 1980 as part of an extensive search of the Early Cretaceous Otway coastline. They initially found four thumbnail fragments of bone at the base of a ninety metre cliff in the then un-named cove. They returned the following year and six more bone fragments were discovered in the same fossil deposit. As the fossil layer was at the base of the cliff it became obvious that to follow the deposit meant tunnelling into the vertical cliff face.

You can read more about the first dinosaur dig at Dinosaur Cove and all the adventures that followed in "Dinosaurs of Darkness" by Thomas H. Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich. Published by Indiana University Press, 2000.

Elliott River

Image: View of the coast line from the path leading down to the mouth of Elliott River. Photographer: Lesley Kool

Just west of Marengo, on the Great Ocean Road, there is a turn off to the south, which takes you to the Elliott River Picnic Area car park near the mouth of Elliott River, at the north end of Blanket Bay. Follow the track from the car park to the mouth of the river and gain access to the rugged coastline. The view is spectacular.
One bone has been found at this site – a well preserved ornithopod dentary, part of the lower jaw from a plant-eating dinosaur.

Reference:
D. Stone, G. Dunnett and D. Stone. “Explore The Great Ocean Road – Geelong to Mt. Gambier”. See Australia Guides Pty. Ltd. 1991

Eric the Red

Heading down to ETW. Photographer: Wendy White.

The Eric the Red fossil locality is marked by a large rusty ship’s anchor embedded in concrete close to the access track to the rocky shore platform, only a few hundred metres from the Point Franklin locality. Named after the wreck of the American ship “Eric the Red”, this locality is actually not where the ship came to grief. It ran aground on a reef at the mouth of Parker River at the south end of Blanket Bay and according to local historian Cate Cousland the hull of the wreck can ”sometimes be seen at the river mouth at low tide”.
According to Wayne Gerdtz, Museum Victoria Discovery Centre administrator, “The vessel itself was wrecked on the final leg of its otherwise uneventful voyage from New York to Melbourne, carrying a cargo of exhibits for the USA pavilion at the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition – silverware, toys and pianos were among its diverse manifest. Assorted artefacts and timber from the wreck washed ashore in the weeks following the wreck of 1880, and many of these items are now in various family and public collections in towns and farmhouses near Cape Otway; indeed some of the timber from the hull and deck was repurposed for construction in houses and sheds around Apollo Bay.
“An interesting coincidence was that the ultimate intended destination for the cargo of Eric the Red was the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens in Melbourne – this is also the destination for the fossils we have extracted from the site, as Museum Victoria’s Palaeontology Collections and laboratory are in the basement of the Exhibition building. Even more coincidentally, the crewman on the ship responsible for the cargo was a Mr. Pickering.” David Pickering is the Museum Victoria’s Vertebrate Palaeontology Collections manager and is responsible for all the vertebrate fossil specimens collected in Victoria, including the Eric the Red site.
Only a handful of fossil bones have been found at the Eric the Red site and it has largely been over-shadowed by its much richer neighbour – Eric the Red West, which we will cover in the next episode.

Cate Cousland “Travelling the Great Ocean Road… a journey through time and place”. Petticoat Publishing 2007. p.142.

Marengo

Photo of Marengo foreshore. Photographer: Lesley Kool

Marengo lies a few kilometres south of Apollo Bay on a small headland named by Nicholas Baudin, captain of the French expedition which mapped the coast in 1802. The Marengo Reefs Marine Sanctuary is a great place to snorkel and dive.
In 1985 part of an ornithopod dinosaur (small plant-eater) femur (thigh bone) was found at Marengo and in 2010 freshwater crustacean burrows were discovered on the rocky shore platform.
References:
Cate Cousland . “Travelling the Great Ocean Road”. Petticoat Publishing 2007.

Point Franklin

Image: Prospecting at Point Franklin. Photographer: Gerry Kool

Situated on the coast, south-west of Point Lewis, this site is accessible from the Otway Lighthouse Road via Blanket Bay Road. It is close to where the ship “Eric the Red” was wrecked in 1880. The ship had sailed from New York and was making its way to Melbourne, carrying a cargo of exhibits for the USA pavilion at the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition, when it ran aground on a reef near Point Franklin. The rusty anchor of Eric the Red can be seen at the Cape Otway lighthouse.
Fossil bones including a dinosaur toe bone, unidentified limb bones and a vertebra were found at Point Franklin during the original prospecting trip, led by Dr. Tom Rich, in 1979.

Point Lewis

Image: Point Lewis foreshore. Photographer: Mike Cleeland.

Point Lewis is situated at the south end of Blanket Bay and is accessible via Blanket Bay Road, off Lighthouse Road. Blanket Bay was the landing site for supplies to the Cape Otway lighthouse before a road was constructed in 1937*.
This site was discovered in 1979, when Dr.Tom Rich and a group of researchers originally prospected the Otway Coast. At that time a maxilla (upper jaw bone) from a small plant-eating dinosaur was found. In more recent years, more fossil bones have been recovered, including lungfish and a plesiosaur tooth.

“Explore the Great Ocean Road – Geelong to Mt. Gambier” D. Stone, G.Dunnett and D. Stone. See Australia Guides Pty.Ltd. 1991.

Skene's Creek

Photographer: Lesley Kool

Travelling on along the Great Ocean Road, through Wye River, Kennett River and Wongarra, you will arrive at Skene’s Creek, approximately 6 km north-east of Apollo Bay.
Skene’s Creek was first settled in the 1800s and is the major road junction between Apollo Bay and Colac. On the flat rocky shore platform one can find ancient ripple marks in the sandstone.
In the 1980s a local resident sent photos of what he thought might be theropod dinosaur footprints on the shore platform, but despite an intensive search, they were never relocated. However, a subsequent search in 1989 led to the discovery of a small ornithopod footprint and possibly the heel impression of a second footprint. These specimens were collected and are currently housed in Museum Victoria’s Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology.
In 2010 Dr. Anthony Martin, along with Dr. Tom Rich and others, conducted his “Great Cretaceous Walk” along the Bass Coast and Otway Coast. On arriving at Skene’s Creek he discovered some fossil crustacean burrows in the sandstone. These burrows have been found in a number of sites on both the Bass and Otway coasts and are important indications of the environment at the time the rocks were deposited.
No fossil bones have been found at Skene’s Creek, but it is definitely worth a visit for the possibility of finding more dinosaur footprints!
References:
Douglas Stone, Greg Dunnett and Derrick Stone. Explore the Great Ocean Road (Geelong to Mount Gambier). Published by See Australia Guides 1991 pp 128.
Cate Cousland and Sharyn Madder. Travelling the Great Ocean Road… a journey through time and place. Petticoat Publishing 2007 pp 143.

For more stories about digs at these sites see our Field Reports and (after 2008) our blog.

Following the discoveries of dinosaur bones along the Bass Coast in 1978/79, Dr. Tom Rich, Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Museum Victoria, realised that the rocks along the Otway coastline, from Eastern View to beyond Moonlight Head, were also Early Cretaceous sedimentary deposits. He and a group of researchers began to systematically search the Otway shore platforms, looking for similar aged fossils. Travelling southwest from Eastern View, they explored the rocky coast line, looking for exposed fossil bones.
The Otway Group is younger than the Strzelecki Group (Bass Coast) by approximately 10 million years and part of the ongoing research is to compare and contrast the two groups. There are some obvious similarities, particularly among the small ornithopod dinosaurs, but there are also some differences. The most obvious difference is the absence of giant temnospondyl amphibians (such as Koolasuchus cleelandi found on the Bass Coast) and the presence of crocodilians in the Otway Group.
A few isolated fossil bones were discovered along the Otway coastline in 1980, including three thumbnail scraps at the base of a cliff in a then un-named cove near Castle Cove. This seemingly minor discovery was to lead to the first dinosaur dig in Victoria and the naming of Dinosaur Cove.
Over the years new fossil localities have been discovered, thanks mainly to Phillip Island geologist Mike Cleeland, who regularly revisits the Otway Coastline in the hope that the constant coastal erosion will uncover new treasures.
2014 saw the Dinosaur Dreaming crew move from the Bass Coast to the Otway Coast as the spotlight shines on the relatively new site at Eric The Red West, near the Cape Otway lighthouse. With the focus of ongoing research moving to the Otway Coast it was decided that we should also focus on the Otway Coast and some of its greatest discoveries over the last 30 years.
Some Otway Coast localities are represented by a single bone fragment whereas others like Eric The Red West and Dinosaur Cove have yielded quite a diversity of fossil animals.