Great Ocean Road Country: Geelong to Port Fairy

 

Grave Tales: Great Ocean Road Country – Geelong to Port Fairy is out now!


We have had the pleasure of living in Port Fairy for six months while we researched this exciting book and here’s a taste of what’s inside this volume:


The Great Ocean Road: Their graves are not here, but 242 kilometres of road carved out of rock by the men who survived World War I, honour the men whose graves lie in foreign soil.


Lewis Bandt: Asked the question in 1933, what can a farmer use to take the family to church on Sunday and the pigs to market the next day, this Geelong inventor developed the Aussie icon which we still drive today.


Arthur Wilkinson: What price heroism? One man who didn’t just stand and watch – he paid the ultimate price attempting the rescue of those stranded at sea. He asked, ‘What is my life against 26 at risk?’


Charles Brownlow: His namesake is famous in AFL circles… yet he played much of his footy for Geelong under an assumed name. The curious story of why the name ‘Brownlow’ almost wasn’t famous at all.


Francis Nesbitt: As renowned as any famous actor of today in his time – the 1850s star of the stage whose fall from grace robbed Australia of a true talent.


James Harrison: Meet the journalist who had a vision and made possible a comfort that today we take for granted. Harrison also helped the nation out of financial depression.


1851 Fires: How did the first settlers face 40 degree plus temperatures, winds like tornados and fierce flames, when they had never seen a bushfire? This is their story.


Lighthouse Ladies: Years of isolation, deprivation and often the loss of children; who were the stoic ladies who accompanied their husbands at the Cape Otway Lighthouse Station?


The Carmichael family: When the Loch Ard ship smashed into Mutton Bird Island in 1878 with 54 passengers onboard, only one young man and one young woman survived. Everyone hoped they would get together…


Billy McLean: The unionists shot during the bitter Shearer’s Strike of 1894… and the question still being asked: was he breaking the law when he was cut down?


Charles Beal: Killed in a tragic coach accident, they said his life of service was over… but was it?


Agnes Ruttleton: Who is this woman whose grave in the Warrnambool Sand Hills was provided by a newspaper proprietor and his readers?


Jack Denholm: A sailors’ life is an exciting one on the ocean’s waves – adventure, mateship and the mysteries of far off places… but at a cost, as Jack’s story tells.


Brothers Rutledge: The Rutledge boys… prominent in the business and social life of Port Fairy… but financial ruin, death and madness would haunt the family.


The Mills Brothers: Did the fabled Portuguese Mahogany Ship really exist? The Mills Brothers of Port Fairy saw it for themselves, but it was never seen again.


Dick the Bushranger: Who was Dick? This is still as much of a mystery today as it was 158 years ago when he was shot down in Port Fairy by Police. Find out why.


These are just some of the stories from the grave in the second book in the Grave Tales series incorporating Geelong, Lorne, Apollo Bay, Cape Otway, Loch Ard Gorge, Warrnambool, Tower Hill and Port Fairy.


Price and availability:

  • $25  inc postage in Australia only, if purchased directly from the Grave Tales shop;
  • Available as an ebook and paperback from Amazon (postage cost determined by Amazon);
  • Also available through all good bookstores at the recommended price of $29.95.
  • Audio books available from Audible.