Film finds lifts road world listing hope

Hamish Heard
A documentary using early 1900s film footage of towns along Victoria’s west coast could hold the key to a World Heritage listing for the Great Ocean Road, according to the region’s tourism chief.
Geelong Otway Tourism’s Roger Grant said he would push for funding for a documentary to back the road’s case for World Heritage status ahead of its 75th birthday celebrations next month.
Mr Grant said searches of the National Film Archive had uncovered reels of old footage depicting life along the Great Ocean Road before, during and after its construction.
“I think there’s a really great story to be told about the history of the road and its origins as a war memorial and of the communities that lived along it,” Mr Grant said.
The road’s contribution to the development of Victoria’s coastal communities combined with its national park setting to fit the criteria for a World Heritage site, he said.
As a World Heritage site the Great Ocean Road would be eligible for money under a fund set up to “conserve sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity”.
“The only World Heritage Site in Victoria is the Royal Exhibition Building, so we don’t have any of national parks protected like they do in other states,” Mr Grant said.
He said Geelong Otway Tourism would approach State Government and councils along the road for funding to help present a strong case to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.
Mr Grant said a three-month program would kick off next month to celebrate the contribution of visionaries like former Geelong mayor Howard Hitchcock who proposed the road and the men who took 14 years to build it.
While all of the soldiers who returned from World War One to build the road are now dead, many locals remember the fanfare of its grand opening in 1932. But Mr Grant’s mother, Marge, remembered the opening like it was last week.
“I hadn’t seen many cars before but to be there with all the gentry with their wonderful cars and fancy hats, I was so impressed,” Mrs Grant said.
“We have a wondrous road but every time I travel down it I think about the great men who built it.”