Point Franklin

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.