'Sometime when you walk in the Otways you feel like you are the first person to ever be there.'

'The Otways is a magnificent area. Incredibly diverse, with rainforests, woodlands, marine environments and phenomenal wildlife.'

One night in 2000, Lizzie Corke and Shayne Neal sat down with a glass of red wine and asked one another, ‘What if? ’ What if you could use your life to do the thing you most wanted in the world? What would it be?

They realised they shared a dream: an environmental park in the Otways where people could learn about and observe native animals. ‘It started as one of those silly conversations but then it started to grow, we made up a business plan and it started to look like it could be a reality,’ Lizzie recalls. ‘We found the perfect property and bought it, with help from our families. We were so lucky because property prices immediately went way up. This meant that by 2002 we were able to borrow against the value of the land to build our centre.’

The Cape Otway Centre for Conservation Ecology opened in 2004 and later that year won the Victorian Tourism Award for a new business. The following year, Lizzie was named the Prime Minister’s Environmentalist of the Year, the first female and youngest-ever recipient of the award. The reality matched – or perhaps even exceeded – the dream.