Originally published in Australian CountryExcerpt
Stand close to almost any cliff on the Great Ocean Road and you appreciate the perils of the Shipwreck Coast, serrated as a knife along the rim of the wild Southern Ocean.
More than 700 hulks lie in the fathomless depths of this graveyard beneath the sea. On a windswept bluff near Port Campbell, two headstones are tucked under heathland in a tiny cemetery marking the calamitous loss of the ill-fated Loch Ard in the pre-dawn hours of June 1, 1878. Far below, sea thunders over sunken reefs, and foamy waves surge onto the beach curled like a fingernail at the bottom of a steep-sided canyon. This is Loch Ard Gorge …