Town by town snapshot – Apollo Bay

The size of Apollo Bay is approximately 87.1 square kilometres for ABS data collection purposes and there is one main park within the town.

The population of Apollo Bay in 2011 was 1,094 people and by the 2016 Census the population was 1,618, showing a population growth of 47.9 per cent in the area during that time.

Apollo Bay is a coastal township and holiday resort on the Great Ocean Road between Lorne and Cape Otway that proudly boasts the safest boat harbour in the region. The bay faces east and is further protected by a breakwater with the Otway Ranges to the west.

It is recorded that in 1846 a schooner ‘Apollo’ sheltered in the bay on the way from Port Phillip to Portland and a few years after that event, timber cutters began taking timber from Apollo Bay and Lorne, and by 1853 the coast had been surveyed in detail and there were several timber camps.

A township proposed to be named Middleton, was surveyed on Apollo Bay with the strong demand for railway sleepers for Victoria’s post-gold rush expansion bringing up to 1,000 timber workers during the early 1860s.

Farming began in 1864 along the Barham River flats, immediately south of the bay, by the Cawood family, who in the next decade built a guest house.

The combination of a relatively sheltered bay, the best of the limited flat land along the coast, and the Cawood settlement finally stimulated the sale of town lots (renamed as Krambruk) in 1877.

CoreLogic data indicates the that predominant age group in Apollo Bay is 60-69 years with households in Apollo Bay being primarily childless couples and are likely to be repaying $1,800 – $23,99 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in Apollo Bay work in a labourer occupation. In 2011, 55.8 per cent of the homes in Apollo Bay were owner-occupied compared with 64.5 per cent in 2016.