Cape Martin Lighthouse

Two lighthouses, one light

At the southern edge of Beachport, Cape Martin carries the town's lighthouse — a modern tower with an unusually layered history. The light apparatus inside it shone for more than eighty years from Penguin Island, the wave-battered islet barely 120 metres off the cape, where a lighthouse was first lit on 1 October 1878 and two keepers and their families once lived in remarkable isolation. Supplies came across by boat, and in 1904 head keeper John Hendry was lost at sea.

When the island station was decommissioned in 1960, its lamp moved to the new mainland tower at Cape Martin. The original concrete tower stood just 4.5 metres high; drifting dunes gradually buried its sightline, and in 1980 it was raised to 12 metres.

Today the cape is an easy stop at the start of Bowmans Scenic Drive, with the abandoned island light still visible across the channel and little penguins giving the island its name. Walk it into a longer loop taking in the Beachport jetty and the surf side of the cape.