Coasting the Ocean Victoria
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 …