Cape Otway - Western Victoria - Australia
Cape Otway was actually my first ever Dxpedition way back in the early 80's. Mike Willis, Peter Bunn and Geoff Cosier and I camped at this remote region. Back in the early days there were huts strewn along the coastline. But unfortunately from a dx sense these huts were removed in the mid 80's as the Parks Department wanted to return vegetation back to a pristine state.
It was the scene of probably 10 or so dx trips over the years. Guys like Dave Headland, Craig Edwards, Lucio Coceani, Paul Newton, Carlos Monje, John Kesckes, Dave Martin and others braved the conditions. Dave Headland and I along with Craig Edwards probably did most of the dxing here. We would use two locations. In the early days perched high up on the cliffs. We would run our beverage antenna's along the top and in some cases over the side. We actually heard Radio Star from Peru on 1030 using this method. It was a great location for Africa and we often heard Reunion. On the flip side we heard many Nth Americans but they were never as strong as say Woodside. Still it was a very interesting location and I even heard 1512 Belgium from here. Often we would dx in cars. We had a few trips in tents. Storms would blow in off the ocean very quickly and we were caught in horrific electrical storms without much shelter. Having 500m coming into the tent was also unnerving during storms. Later we used |