Victoria Coast Australia

Coast is on its biggest expedition ever.

After exploring the coastline of Britain and Europe

for almost a decade,

I've landed on the vast island continent

that is Australia.

The air's clearer.

The light's brighter.

The colours are sharper.

It's a land that boasts over 60,000 kilometres of coastline.

On this journey,

we're revealing new stories

and revelling in the history,

the geography,

and the people

who connect us with perhaps the most spectacular coastline on Earth.

This is Victoria's fabled Shipwreck Coast.

The remains of over 600 vessels lie scattered

across the sea bed out there.

It's an elemental coastline,

hewn by winds,

strong ocean currents

and powerful waves.

For millions of years,

these shores have been under attack from a fearsome foe -

the mighty Southern Ocean.

And here's where it comes ashore...

with a force that impacts on the landscape

and on the people.

We're off on a journey along a coast of contrasts -

from historic wrecks

to stories of heartbreak and ingenuity.

On our trip, we'll explore astonishing feats of engineering

and uncover places of incredible beauty

that are bristling with danger.

Anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett

unravels the mystery

behind a tragic shipwreck that marked the end of an era...

It's amazing that after so much time

we can come down here and see it.

..Brendan Moar finds out first-hand

about the incredible risks it took

to build the worlds biggest war memorial -

the Great Ocean Road...

Ah, this is an incredible view

but it is kind of terrifying.

..palaeontologist Professor Tim Flannery

tracks down proof of a truly massive predator...

Hey, come on...! Look at that!

Can you believe it?

That is the tinniest find...

..and I discover the crucial role this lighthouse played

in the birth of a nation.

This is known as a landfall light.

So what this is saying is like -

"Hello! Hello! This is Cape Otway. I'm here. You've arrived.

This is Coast Australia.

Our route covers a coastline that stretches from Flinders,

on the Mornington Peninsula

through the beach suburbs of Melbourne,

along the Great Ocean Road

past Cape Otway

onto Port Campbell in the west.

We start our expedition at the top of Port Phillip Bay.

That's where you'll find one of the world's great cities -

Melbourne.

It's a place renowned for its urban design and art scene.

But before we set off on our journey,

I thought I'd better have a cheeky wee dip

at one of the city's more historic visual attractions.

Oh!

That's British cold!

Oh!

Of all Australia's capital cities, Melbourne -

often dubbed the most European -

is not famous for its beach life.

But, ironically, Melbournians enjoy more metropolitan beach space

than any other city dwellers.

But as you can see from this photo,

hitting the beach in 1879

was a vastly different proposition.

And for decades, beach attire meant far less flesh was on display.

So with the bathers came beach boxes designed to preserve their modesty.

Today there are about 1,800 left across Port Phillip Bay.

Look at these, aren't they brilliant?

Must admit, this very much reminds me of beaches back home.

Every one a little work of art. Morning!

Morning! Good morning.

Bye-bye.

'But what are they being used for, and by whom?'

Hi, John. Hi. How are you doing? Very well, thanks.

Suzie. Hi. How are you? Nice to meet you.

Can I use your facilities? Of course. You're welcome.

Just get changed. There's a potty in there if you want that, as well.

Thank you very much! That's all right.

'This box belongs to John Rundle,

'a former president of the Brighton Box Bathing Association.

'He's owned it for over 20 years.'

Oh, that's better! Thank you very much.

That's all right.

How much of a Melbourne tradition are they?

Oh, they've always been here.

They go back to about the 1870s.

We think the idea was copied from England,

where they had the bathing boxes on wheels

and they had a similar thing here.

Was this taken on this beach?

We believe these were taken on the beach.

Eventually, things became a little bit more liberal

and the boxes just got left up on the beach as changing sheds.

Did you get to know your neighbours just as you

would in a house in an ordinary street?

Definitely. Everybody here knows each other.

It's, um, a very tightly knit community.

It's also a rather exclusive community.

Even though these huts have no power or water

and you're not allowed to stay overnight, they're not cheap.

In 2011, one sold for $260,000!

Today there are 85 huts here.

Through the years a number have been washed away by storms,

but somehow, I get the feeling

that this now colourful Victorian tradition will be an enduring one.

As you leave the sheltered embrace of Port Phillip Bay and head west,

you hit one of the most impressive and perilous

stretches of coastline in the world -

the Shipwreck Coast.

In years gone by, it would strike fear into the hearts

of those trying to navigate its hazardous waters.

Tragically for some,

this jagged shore would be their first,

and last sight of Australia.

Anthropologist Dr Xanthe Mallett

is investigating why the Shipwreck Coast's most famous victim

perished so close to safety.

This shoreline has extracted a terrible human toll over the years.

If you look out at the whole coastline,

you can almost feel the menace.

It's like these sheer cliffs are claws reaching out

to draw the ships in.

I've come here to try and find out

why the ill-fated clipper Loch Ard

came to grief here 13 weeks after she'd set off from England

in March, 1878.

In the early hours of June 1st, she was less than a day

from her destination - Melbourne.

But the ship was running well off course in a thick sea mist

and just out here, a lethal natural trap was lying in wait.

Instead of following her intended course, the Loch Ard,

carrying 54 passengers and crew

was well north and headed directly for the coast.

To find out how this happened and exactly why the Loch Ard sank,

I've come to Port Campbell.

I'm hitching a ride with local diver and expert on the Loch Ard's

last voyage, Gary Barclay.

Good morning. Morning. Hello.

How are you? Welcome to Port Campbell.

Good to meet you. Come on board the boat.

Thank you very much.

Today, conditions are perfect -

a far cry from the night the Loch Ard emerged from the mist

to find itself heading for disaster.

Seeing the sheer cliffs ahead, the captain, William Gibb,

frantically tried to save his ship.

First, he tried to stop the Loch Ard

and push its bow back out to sea.

He threw some anchors

once he realised he was heading straight for land.

He thought if those anchors held,

he could wait for better conditions,

then sail back out to sea and away he'd go.

Those conditions didn't come.

The strong southerly wind

was pushing the boat backwards towards the land.

Gibb released the anchors.

The bow swung to the west

and the captain made a last ditch effort to escape...

He tried to do a manoeuvre

where he'd done a complete circle of the bay,

and tried to come back out.

As he was passing this point, just in front of this island here,

he hit the submerged reef, which is just below the water here.

So, literally, it's just here?

It's just here beside us, yeah.

To discover more, we've got to examine the wreck.

The wreck of the Loch Ard was only found in 1967,

almost 90 years after she went down.

It's just amazing - seeing it like this, in situ,

after hearing the story is just incredible.

What we're seeing here is the hull of the ship

wedged up against Muttonbird Island.

This really gives you an idea of the peril that they were in

when you can see literally the ship touching the island.

The wreck's been protected since 1976,

but it's clear to see where looters blasted a hole in the hull

in search of artefacts.

But some cargo remains

and it's believed these heavy railway lines interfered

with the ship's compass and pushed it off course.

It was carrying a massive amount of steel and stuff like that

and that could've played with some of the instruments,

caused a problem, and that may have been why he came so close to land

before he realised.

This heavy cargo would also have made the Loch Ard

an unwieldy beast to handle once it got in trouble.

Tragically, the ship was one of the last sail-powered clippers

carrying passengers from the United Kingdom to Australia.

Under steam, it almost certainly would've managed to escape

the clutches of the coastline.

That was just phenomenal getting to see...the wreck down there

and how close it is to the island. They had no chance did they? No.

But this is only half the story.

What happened as the Loch Ard foundered is truly remarkable.

Desperately trying to man a lifeboat,

18-year-old apprentice Tom Pearce was washed into the water.

Clinging to the lifeboat, he was miraculously pushed through

a narrow gorge and onto this beach.

'Rex Mathieson's dived on numerous wrecks along the coast

'and studied the Loch Ard extensively.'

He was actually washed in here.

In the upturned lifeboat.

So through this little opening that we see now?

I mean, it's a beautiful day but then it was cold,

it was dark... Completely different!

It's the first of June!

And in winter - which is the southern hemisphere -

you can't see anything until about

seven or eight o'clock in the morning

and this is at four or five o'clock in the morning. Wow.

After he'd rested for a little while, he came out -

it was daylight.

And that's when he heard the cries of help from Eva Carmichael,

this young 18-year-old Irish lass.

She'd been in the water for four or five hours!

How she survived in a nightie, I don't know.

Is that all she was wearing? That's all she was wearing.

It took Tom about an hour to rescue Eva.

Somehow he then found the energy

to scramble out of the gorge.

Look he's only a young guy - five foot, four-and-a-half inches tall,

and the...the strength and fortitude that he had is damned amazing!

Even more incredibly, the pair had come ashore

near the only dwelling for miles - Glenample Station.

A set of hoof prints led Tom

to two of the station's riders

and the pair were saved.

Tom and Eva were the only survivors.

Today, the gorge bears the name Loch Ard in memory of a wreck

that, for me, truly symbolises tragedy and heroism

along with both good and ill fortune.

The coastline near Lorne is an often inhospitable shore.

and one that continually challenged the skill and nerve

of those who wanted to settle on its fringes.

Brendan's on a mission to unearth the risks that had to be taken

to create one of Australia's most incredible feats of engineering.

I don't reckon there are many experiences that beat this.

It's just mile after mile after mile of smooth driving

through incredible scenery.

But 100 years ago, reaching the isolated towns

scattered along this coast was no easy task,

particularly if you weren't keen to take to these

notoriously treacherous seas.

Basically, you had one option -

travelling along awful bush tracks like this one.

But that was all about to change.

In 1918, World War I was drawing to a close.

Over 400,000 Australian men had enlisted to fight

for their country.

More than 60,000 would make the ultimate sacrifice.

Back in Victoria,

one man had a plan to honour the dead and wounded diggers,

and provide work for those

who would make it home.

He was Howard Hitchcock, the mayor of Geelong...

and he wanted to build a road.

But not just any road -

one that would cling to the coastline.

In many places it would be cut out of sheer cliff faces.

So he set up a trust,

and started fundraising.

In 1919, the work began.

But the job ahead would be incredibly demanding.

I'm meeting historian Iain Grant to explore the reasons why.

G'day, Iain. Brendan, how are you?

Very, very good. Great to meet you.

Thank you. So this is the Great Ocean Road?

This is the Great Ocean Road.

So they had the men, they had the money, they had the resources.

Yes. And so what did they actually use to build the thing?

Well, things like a pick and a shovel...

Oh! ..and hard work.

HARD work?

It was just physical, physical slog all day.

Punch after punch after grunt after grunt.

Living under canvas,

the men toiled five and a half days a week,

in all conditions.

Many had left the trenches of World War I...for this.

If it was hot, they worked, if it was cold, they worked.

If it was raining cats and dogs, they still worked.

What were the safety conditions like? Safety?

Yeah? Hee-hee-hee!

OK, Brendan. We'll get you in a harness first.

'Well, to fully experience what the diggers went through

'I guess I've got to have a crack at the way they worked.'

Man, oh, man!

I can't believe they had to do this.

So what they had to do is, they scrambled down the hillside

with a rope attached to them and to a tree.

And once they were here, they'd start to make a foothold

into the side of the cliff,

and then from that, they would continue their way

into the hillside, just making a V.

I can't even believe...

that this is the way they did it.

Ah, this is an incredible view...!

But it is kind of terrifying.

Now I'm just faking this.

And I mean faking it. Whoa.

And it gives me a real appreciation for what they did.

The work progressed steadily, and in 1922,

the first section - between Lorne and Eastern View -

opened, complete with a toll.

Each passenger cost extra and as we know, everyone hates paying a toll.

So, in order to save a bit of cash,

sometimes they would stop the car just before the toll gate,

one of the passengers would get out, walk along the beach,

and try and join them on the other side.

There was just one problem.

Hey! What do you think you're up to, you lousy rotten sod?!

Trying to dodge the toll up there!

All right, I've got to get a deener

out of you! Sneaking along here with a suitcase....!

You didn't expect me coming down, catching you, did you?

No, I did not! It's Doug, isn't it?

Yes. Doug. Brendan.

'Doug Stirling had first-hand experience with the toll dodgers,

'and their fate at the hands of the notorious and much-feared

'toll collector, Mrs Wright.'

We used to play here as kids.

And with the Wright kids,

and if they saw anybody of the likes of you

walking along the beach with a suitcase,

they'd know what was up and they'd go up and tell Mum.

Was she a scary lady? Oh, was she ever?!

You wouldn't want to tangle with her. No way!

So what's that bag on your shoulder there, Doug?

Oh, that's the actual toll bag.

That's what they collected the toll in. I see!

You can even see Great Ocean Road

is scratched into the front of the bag there.

And what's this? A-ha!

Now that's the lady herself.

This is Mrs Wright.

Nobody got past her.

HE CHUCKLES

A bit like an encounter with Mrs Wright,

the new road wasn't for the faint-hearted.

Was it a dangerous road, though?

People THOUGHT it was dangerous because they were frightened.

Because they could see the sea way down below them there,

beckoning them to come, you know.

Come over the side.

There were quite a few went over the road

but they were pushed over for insurance.

They didn't... They were!

They didn't...they didn't go over by accident.

That happened a fair bit.

In 1936, the road was fully handed over to the state

and the tolls removed.

CONTEMPORARY RECORDING: 'I have very much pleasure to open the toll gate

'and declare the road a public highway

'as a gift from the Great Ocean Road Trust.'

Today, the Great Ocean Road stretches 243 kilometres

from Allansford near Warrnambool to Torquay

and in 2011, it was added to the Australian National Heritage List,

in recognition of its iconic status.

Above all, though, it remains a premium

Australian touring experience,

thanks to the diggers of World War I.

For the next stop on our journey, I'm back on the shores of Melbourne.

But there's nothing genteel about my destination this time.

I've come to a suburb with a rather chequered past,

and a little-known connection with Hollywood!

St Kilda.

During the 1800s,

this place was a welcome retreat from inner Melbourne,

where sewage and waste from houses and stables

emptied into open drains.

This was just a quick 15 minute tram ride from the city centre.

It became the preferred suburb of the rich,

and they built their houses on the surrounding hills

and down on the waterfront.

Everybody else came here just to promenade

and peacock and people-watch.

But the Great Depression of the 1890s transformed

both St Kilda and the mansions of the rich,

which were turned into brothels, theatres and guesthouses.

That changing status coincided

with the rise of boardwalk carnival culture that had sprung up

in the USA, with the likes of New York's Coney Island.

An American entrepreneur and film fanatic, JD Williams

wanted to recreate that experience here

and in 1912 he opened Luna Park.

This rare footage

of what is now the oldest continuously operating

roller coaster in the world

was filmed by Williams himself.

A year after Luna Park opened,

Williams returned to Hollywood

and set up the film distribution company

that would later become Warner Brothers.

In this photo, he can be seen with Charlie Chaplin,

the biggest movie star of the day.

St Kilda's Luna Park is no longer

the cultural game changer it once was.

But don't worry,

this fun park is a stayer.

Apart from breaks for restoration

it's never closed,

maybe because it lets us take a step back

to a simpler time.

And it's fun!

Honestly(!)

I could ride this thing for hours,

but I need to say farewell to this city

and we have to move on.

Follow the curve of Port Phillip Bay south

and you'll find yourself on the Mornington Peninsula.

Nestled across on its eastern side facing the ocean

is a town named after the great explorer Matthew Flinders.

Marine ecologist Dr Emma Johnston is on an expedition herself

to uncover the secrets hidden beneath the town's pier

and their link to a tragic piece of history.

In 2002, the Victorian government

wanted to choose a new marine emblem for the state

so it organised a public vote.

Over 24,000 votes were cast

and there was one clear winner -

the little chap in this beautiful photograph,

the weedy seadragon.

These beautiful creatures are rare,

and in my years of diving I've never seen one.

'It really would be a thrill

'to examine the weedy seadragon close up - they fascinate me! -

'so I've tracked down marine researcher

'Richard Wylie who took that award-winning photo.'

Well, one of the favourite spots for weedy seadragons

is near pier pilings,

so let's hope there's a few hanging round here.

With the light filtering down under the pier,

there's an almost ethereal quality

to the water here

that's actually rather beautiful.

The dragons are masters of disguise -

almost impossible to find.

'But not long into our dive,

'in amongst all the weed...'

Oh, my gosh! It's absolutely beautiful!

I think it might be the most beautiful creature

I've seen underwater.

They're like brilliant little critters, aren't they?

It doesn't seem to be scared by me, at all.

They tend to spend quite a lot of their time

just hanging around the one spot. They don't move very far.

They're actually spend most of their time just drifting.

In fact, an adult seadragon may only move about 100 metres

through their whole life.

Are you going to be able to get some good shots of it?

I think I can.

'Today however, the conditions mean

'there'll be no award winners snapped in my presence.'

But I reckon just seeing the weedy seadragon was reward enough.

And these little creatures

have had a fan club for over a century,

well before Richard snapped them on this state-of-the-art technology.

'Back on dry land, marine educator Harry Breidahl

'is about to show me the proof that the elusive seadragon

'was first documented by an extraordinary artist

'with an extraordinary story, 130 years ago.'

Wow!

What a BEAUTIFUL drawing!

It is one of my absolute favourites.

I think I fell in love with it many years ago.

It's just a fantastic example of how art and science

come together in a picture.

If you look at the next one.

Oh! That's a local lobster. Even more detail! It is.

Wow!

And I just... I'm amazed at the illustrator's ability

to show that detail.

And who did these pictures?

A wonderful gentlemen called Ludwig Becker.

German-born Ludwig Becker was a genuinely fascinating chap,

who'd arrived in Australia in 1851.

A skilled artist, he was also a keen astronomer and geologist.

He was like sort of a gentleman naturalist of the age.

He turned his hand to anything and was good at it.

His talents were such that in 1860

Becker joined the Burke and Wills expedition,

which aimed to travel from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Once under way, however, it quickly became clear

that expedition leader Robert Burke

felt Becker's scientific activities were holding things up.

Six weeks into the trip, he took action.

If you read some of his diaries... That's a bit of his diary? Yep.

October, 1860.

"Mr Burke told us that from today we had to walk inch for inch

"all the way up to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

"To me he said, 'From this time you have

"'to give up your scientific investigations,

"'but to work like the rest of the men.'" Oh.

Becker struggled on but, sadly, seven months later,

he succumbed to scurvy and dysentery.

It was a heart-breaking end

for a truly talented man.

But his work is still being exhibited -

proof of his ability to capture

the essence of the region's wildlife,

wildlife which continues to inspire Becker's modern day contemporaries.

The next step of our journey

takes us to Cape Otway.

This is where the Southern Ocean

hits the southern shores of the Australian mainland.

The waves here are funnelled into what is still one of the most

hazardous shipping lanes in the world,

and for early immigrants,

running the gauntlet here could be a terrifying experience.

I'm on a mission to discover how one building

that was constructed in the nick of time,

helped in the creation of a new colony.

You might think it'd be difficult

to hide a 240-kilometre-wide strip of ocean.

But for the first 10 years of colonial settlement in Australia,

that's exactly what Bass Strait managed to do.

The Bass Strait is the body of water that separates Tasmania

from mainland Australia.

But while some explorers suspected its existence,

until 1798,

no-one could be sure that Van Diemen's Land,

as it was known then, was actually an island.

That year, the strait was discovered by Matthew Flinders and George Bass.

Now ships on their way to Melbourne and Sydney

no longer had to pass underneath Tasmania,

but could take a short cut

that shaved a week off their journey from Britain.

But just finding the gap between the mainland and King Island,

88 kilometres offshore from here,

was no easy task.

Sailing through here became known as

"threading the eye of the needle".

The new route was also treacherous,

and from the moment it was discovered,

the strait proved a graveyard to shipping.

But...a saviour was at hand.

'But exactly what persuaded the authorities

'to build this lighthouse?

'I've joined Paul Thompson, manager of the Cape Otway light

'to learn more.'

It was really when 1845 comes along and 399 people lost their life

off the ship the Cataraqui

crashing into the western coast of King Island.

And it was really that Australia needed a population to come here,

to emigrate, that the authorities thought,

"Right, we need a lighthouse here at Cape Otway,

"let's find the money to build it."

I usually think of lighthouses as being a warning, you know, keep off,

but it sounds as though Cape Otway lighthouse is saying,

"Come here!"

This is known as a landfall light.

So what this is saying is, "Hello! Hello! This is Cape Otway. I'm here.

"You've arrived. You've made it to Australia. Well done."

It's not telling you to avoid a reef

it's saying "Keep me in sight." Yeah, "This way. Come through here."

And it was known as "the beacon of hope".

Immigrants coming to Australia.

They'd been sailing for two, three - maybe up to four months -

without seeing any land, and when they see that beacon.

that Cape Otway light station, "Oh, thank goodness, we've arrived."

"We've made safe passage.

"We have the entrance, the guiding light into Australia."

Two years after the lighthouse was completed,

gold was discovered in Victoria,

and the volume of passing traffic rocketed.

That was the huge time.

The population explosion in Victoria

and you would have looked out on this ocean

and you'd have seen big clipper ships -

60, 70, up to 80 ships a day - passing through Bass Strait.

Wow! Really! So, it was an amazingly busy highway.

Gosh, it was built just in time! Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

"Whenever I smell salt water,

"I know I'm not far from one of the works of my ancestors."

Those words were penned by the Scottish novelist

Robert Louis Stevenson, in 1880.

But he might just as well have been writing about this

lighthouse station half a world away.

Robert's own father was one of four generations of

Lighthouse Stevensons, as they were known -

engineering men who built every lighthouse in Scotland.

The Cape Otway light is based on those Scottish lighthouses,

built without any mortar,

but rather interlocking stones -

an inherently stronger design.

Such was the salvation this lighthouse offered,

it's been suggested by some

that without the Cape Otway Light Station the colony in NSW

and the birth of Victoria might not have come to pass!

You up there, Pat? Yeah. mate. Come on up!

From 1987 to '91, Pat Howell was the proud custodian of the light,

and its traditions.

There was enormous amount of shipping -

an enormous amount of lives were in your hands.

And that's got handed down too through the...

through the decades, I guess - down and down and down -

and even at the end you were still dedicated,

you still, you know, come up here.

You still polish the damn thing.

Because Cape Otway was a beacon, it needed a very bright light.

This Fresnel lens, made of heavy lead crystal

concentrated a one million candlepower beam

that could be seen almost 50 kilometres away.

It weighs 2.5 tonnes and in today's money is worth about $5 million!

Are there any of the practices and traditions

of the very first lighthouse keepers

that you still maintained in your time?

Yeah. Actually, the dedication was the same!

Because it was handed down.

As you become a keeper you just had certain things

that you were taught that the keeper that taught you had been taught.

You done the cleaning of a Friday,

because they'd done that 200 years ago.

You still come up here when it was electric.

Matter-of-fact, when it was automated and I didn't have to come up,

I'd still come up and walk around the balcony -

look at sea, and put Bass Strait to sleep, if you like.

Just make sure everything was right out there.

You couldn't see any ships or smaller vessels in strife.

And then go back up and watch the footy or something.

As ships reached Cape Otway,

news of their safe passage would be passed on.

It was here, that passing ships

laden with their human and commercial cargo,

reported safe arrival in Australia -

the first anyone would have heard from them

after lonely months at sea.

And that information was relayed back to London

from telegraph machines like this one.

But as the populations of Sydney and Melbourne grew,

the most important message getting back to the motherland,

via Cape Otway, was a simple one.

"The growth of a brave new world is well under way."

At almost 2,000 square kilometres,

Port Phillip Bay is the largest sea water bay

in the southern hemisphere.

It's basically a huge shallow pan

with a maximum depth of 24 metres.

Virtually unaffected by tide

or geographical features,

this bay is one of the world's best waterways for sailing.

Andrew MacDougall is the world's leading designer of a unique

sailing craft - the moth.

At the last Moth World Championships

his design took the top six places

and it's a class he's passionate about,

mainly because of the freedom it offers designers.

The moth class is a class like no other -

it's the only class in the world that has no real restrictions.

And you can do anything.

The very first moth was actually

built in 1928 in Inverloch

only about 100 kilometres from here.

In the last 85 years, it's undergone numerous design changes

but it was only ten years ago

that these craft started flying on foils.

The moth would have to be

the fastest dinghy on the planet,

by a long way.

The record is 32 knots which is just on 60K.

It's just simply ridiculously fast.

Everything goes quiet. Everything is smooth.

It's indescribable.

Andrew's boat may be futuristic,

but he sails it within touching distance

of an unusual reminder of Australia's maritime past.

This is the wreck of the Cerberus -

the first naval ship constructed for the defence of Australia in 1869,

and one with a colourful history.

Two crews mutinied on its delivery trip from England,

and it was the first warship to pass through the Suez Canal.

But once it got here,

the Cerberus never fired a shot in anger

and it never left Port Phillip Bay.

In 1926, it was sunk as a breakwater.

Today, it provides a spectacular backdrop to a boat

at the cutting edge of design and performance.

Travel just a few kilometres along the shoreline

from the wreck of the Cerberus

and you'll find yourself at a beach-side suburb where

the first Australian impressionists drew their inspiration.

And it's not hard to see why.

But palaeontologist Professor Tim Flannery hasn't come here to paint

he's come in search of prehistoric monsters.

This is Beaumaris,

and if I'd been here five million years ago these waters would've been

really shark infested.

'I'm meeting Victorian palaeontologist Dr Erich Fitzgerald.

'His passion is investigating the evolution of aquatic vertebrates

'and this is virtually his back yard.'

Hi, Erich. Oh, g'day, Tim. How are things? Yeah, good.

So, Erich, what's so special about this place?

Well, Tim, at Beaumaris, just underneath the surface of the water,

we've got fossils of lots of extinct animals

but also animals still alive today.

OK. And what were they like? How big were they?

Well, for example, there was a shark the length of a city bus.

There was a penguin as tall as a man.

And there was even extinct killer sperm whales.

'Well, I want to get my hands on some hard evidence that these

'incredible creatures actually existed.

'It's time for a fossil hunt.'

All right, mate. Now look I've got the secret weapon here just in case

we find the big fella. Oh, I can't believe it.

I should have done that! It is an unfair advantage.

Five to six million years ago,

the climate here was two to three degrees warmer.

There was a diversity of species simply not seen here today.

This really was the lost Serengeti of the seas.

I'm just hoping I've found better proof of that than Erich!

Look at this. I've got a good swag here.

The old swag bag came in useful. You actually found something?

I did. Look, there's a lump of whalebone. Oh, yeah.

Yep, so it is. Very nice.

And a beautiful fossil oyster. Oh, right. Quite a large one. Yeah!

That's a nice thing to get.

And a rib of a dolphin or something like that. Fantastic. Quite nice.

But Erich's come up with something exceptional.

Come on...! Look at that.

Can you believe it?

Look that is the tinniest find ever!

Oh, I see!

I see its got a museum number on there.

All right, all right....! OK, you're right, I didn't find that now,

but that is a tooth of the giant extinct shark Megalodon.

Aren't they magnificent things!

It is. That is extraordinary.

Erich's trickery aside, this massive tooth is real.

The Megalodon did swim in what would ultimately become

Port Phillip Bay up until about one and a half million years ago.

And this pumped-up great white was a true terror of the seas.

But I want to know just how big it was.

So we're going to compare it with its direct descendant

the great white.

Three...four...five...

You're going to give it six? ..six!

That's a huge great white, isn't it?

Most are three to five metres.

But we'll give him the benefit of the doubt at six? Yep.

And six metres is an exceptional specimen by today's standards.

But the great white's a mere baby compared to the Megalodon.

16 metres!

That's a whale-sized predatory shark.

That is extraordinary.

Certainly is.

And this monstrous predator had a mouth to match.

At full gape, Tim...

My goodness, look at that!

..that's going to be able to swallow you and I

straight down the hatch almost.

It wouldn't need to chew. No. We'd just be going down the well.

Exactly.

If our earliest human ancestors had felt like taking a dip,

they could have encountered a creature

that could exert the most powerful bite in history.

But why did it, and the other giant creatures around here,

disappear from the waters of Beaumaris?

What actually happened to cause that extinction?

Well, the key here is food.

Take away a bounty of food resources

that can support giant sharks

and that amounts to a big change in environment.

And I think that's the key - climatic changes,

changes in ocean currents and temperature

and also decreases in production of the food these animals fed on

led to the end of that lost world.

Right, so less productive environment, less food...

The things that eat the most food, go extinct. Exactly.

And so today what we're left with in southern Australia

is really but a shadow of the former glory

of the mega fauna of Beaumaris.

Our trip now takes us beyond the confines of Port Phillip Bay,

to a coastline of wild weather,

waves and beaches.

Across Australia, there are over 11,000 beaches,

but here in Victoria,

there's one that's renowned for both the quality of its surf

and its role in Australian surfing history.

It's called Bells Beach

and Miriam Corowa has tracked down someone who can unravel its secrets.

It's not hard to see the surf here is something special,

but to find out just why the waves here are so good,

I'm meeting geomorphologist Dale Appleton.

He's both an expert on the local land and sea formations

and a keen surfer.

What's happening here at Bells Beach

to make these waves the way they are?

The secret, Miriam, is pretty simple.

It's two things. It's the bathymetry -

the shape of the underwater sea bed out here,

and, of course, the waves.

I mean, look at the waves.

So it's the swell

and also what's going on underneath the water that's the secret?

That's right, the mix of the both.

And if you have a look over here at Bells headland, behind us here,

you can see that angle driving down - that's solid limestone.

That limestone exists as a beautiful shelf

that goes right the way out to sea.

It's a constant slope out like this.

I couldn't imagine an engineer

that could've done a better job, I would say.

Bells perfection has led it to play a key role

in the development of surfing here.

In 1962, it hosted its first competition.

11 years later, a $2,500 prize fund

made it Australia's first professional event.

Each year the world's top surfers converge on this spot

and vie for the right to ring the bell on the winner's trophy.

'But year upon year,

'the consistency and quality of the waves here

'continue to delight pros

'and amateurs alike.'

What's it like for you when you're out surfing those waves?

I well remember the first wave I ever caught out there,

when I took the bottom turn

and I looked along the face and went - whoa!

It's like roaring along the side of a block of flats that go for ever.

Yeah, it's great!

This beach has inspired passion and progress in equal measure.

But it's only when you see these waves with your own eyes that

you really appreciate how the elements, the earth and the sea

have all worked together to produce a genuine surfing masterpiece.

We're getting towards the end of our journey now

and we may have saved the best till last.

Because this is, without a doubt,

one of the most spectacular sights in Australia.

But it's a sight that can change before your very eyes.

I've come here to see how an Australian icon

is both vanishing...

and being re-built at the same time!

This is Port Campbell National Park.

For millions of years,

coastal erosion working on the softer deposits in the bottom layers

of the limestone here,

has carved out hollows in the cliffs.

Over time, those hollows became caves

and the caves became arches.

During the last 6,000 years or so - and that's a blink of time,

given that the Port Campbell limestone is pegged at

between 15 and 20 million years old - the arches collapse,

leaving behind these spectacular, almost sculpted features

known as sea stacks.

Every year over a million people come to see what are now

called the Twelve Apostles.

Although when Victorian tourism officials gave them that name in 1922

there were only nine stacks standing.

Today, just seven remain.

In 2005, this apostle tumbled into the sea.

Four years later, another followed suit.

It's anyone's guess which one will leave us next.

But don't worry about the apostles.

There will always be more - monumental forces

are still at work borrowing, ferreting,

finding the paths of least resistance,

so that these cliffs are always being reworked and re-sculpted.

Just give it a few centuries, or even millennia.

But there's really only one way to fully appreciate

this magnificent construct of nature.

Given that this is the Shipwreck Coast,

it's probably safer to see it from the air than from the sea!

I'm leaving this journey,

and the company of the seven remaining apostles.

I just wonder how many will be here when I return?

This is undoubtedly a coastline marked

by triumph and tragedy

and by wild weather and waves.

Next time, Coast travels to the Northern Territory...

..and there will be blood as Dr Emma Johnston discovers...

We've got the croc blood!

..Professor Tim Flannery unearths an uncomfortable truth...

It was this country

that defeated the greatest empire the world's ever seen -

the British Empire.

..Dr Xanthe Mallett confronts a floating wall of death...

Do you reckon that's anchored to the bottom then?

Absolutely.

..and I investigate a siege.

The attack has gone down in history as Australia's Pearl Harbor.

But for now, it's goodbye.

I've got to fly!