Located 43 km south of Colac on the northern edge of the Otway
Ranges, Beech Forest is a tiny township which achieved its
moment of national fame in 1983 when a 61-year-old local potato
farmer, Cliff Young, won the Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon.
Now Beech Forest is the home to many wonderful food and primary
producers as well as the centre of the Otway Harvest Trail. The
town was named after the Beech (myrtle) trees which abound in
the local area. It was first settled by Europeans in the 1880s
as a result of pressure to open the Otway Ranges to settlement.
The first land selection occurred in 1884 and the first pub was
built four years later. It is claimed that the pub was completed
using timber from a single giant mountain With the abundance of
this kind of timber, Beech Forest quickly became a major centre
for the local timber industry. There were 29 timber mills in
district at one point. This was compounded when, in 1902, the
railway from Colac arrived. It was a narrow gauge railway and
when it was ex