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It has been said, by local historians, that the Mountjoys abandoned their interest in the cattle
station through heavy losses in stock, caused in part by bush fires and the depredations of wild
dogs. Presumably they sold the lease, though they retained some acres around their home,
before the area around Louttit Bay was declared by the government in 1878, to be forfeited as
a pastoral run.
At any rate, early in 1868 an idea was born, a decision was taken, that changed the direction of
the Mountjoys' lives and of many others yet unborn.
Tom and Caleb, or Tom and Sophie, decided to turn the homestead into a Temperance Hotel.
It seems to us a bold idea, an unusual one for the offspring of Cornish yeomen. It was most
probably motivated by the fact that the country on the other side of the Otway Ranges had by
then been opened up and settlers were moving in. By 1865, at Mackey's Corner, there were 40
houses north of Deans Marsh and within a radius of two miles. Other juvenile townships within
30 miles of Louttit Bay were Winchelsea, Bambra and Birregurra. When their inhabitants
needed a holiday or an outing they sought the sea, and Louttit Bay provided most of the settlers
on the banks of the upper Barwon with their nearest escape from the heat of summer, and with
sea and river fishing.
Although Queenscliff further north had begun to cater for Geelong's holiday-makers - and there
were few who took holidays then - there was hardly anywhere else to go for a relaxing change
of scene and air, for safe sea-bathing,
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coo! forest walks and a spot of fishing. Fish abounded at Louttit Bay: a handiine dangled from a
boat in the bay or from coastal rocks could be taken by whiting, snapper, garfish, trevelly,
saimon and gunny shark. Trout, bream, bass and perch lurked in the Erskine River. There was
little competition: south of Geelong and along the coast there was but one boarding-house - at
Spring Creek (which would be renamed as Torquay in 1892).
The Mountjoy brothers must also have had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances,
particularly among the better-off Cornish and Scottish graziers and in the Wesleyan community.
Many of these would have been easily encouraged to spend a weekend or a week at Louttit
Bay. Some no doubt initially visited Thomas Mountjoy over the Christmas and New Year
period, as many of his relatives must have done, including Lawrence Mountjoy and Jane and her
ageing father, William.
Was there a moment in 1868 when Sophie Mountjoy, snowed under with children and visitors,
complained that she couldn't take any more? Was some remark made at dinner, or by one of
the brothers as they sat discussing their various business problems over a glass of port?
Somebody may have said: Why don't we build a hotel?'
Much of the material for the construction of the building (the first to be built there of stone)
would have come by sea, and been ferried, or carried, ashore. The furnishing would have
likewise arrived. The visitors, for the most part, came by horse over the mountain ranges. The
track had to be widened, to accommodate wheeled transport, and by 1872, with government
assistance, it was. Meanwhile, the government's surveyor, AC Allen, had visited the area in
1869 - presumably he was well looked after at the newly built Erskine House -and he
subdivided Louttit Bay into 29 allotments, none bigger than two acres. Mr Allen also changed
the settlement's name to Lome - after the Marquis of that name.
In 1870 the Geelong Advertiser noted, on 18 February, that: 'MrT Mountjoy of Louttit Bay
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