Victoria’s Shipwreck Coast
On a slow drive towards Moonlight Head, the Shipwreck Coast’s treacherous swell turns our attention seaward, our heads swirling with imaginary thick fogs that since the 1830s have obscured uncharted, rocky reefs and claimed more than 600 vessels.
I picture rising from the deep the mysterious Mahogany Ship, a fabled sand-bound ship thrown from the sea off Warrnambool 500 years ago, drowning its crew of 15th century Portuguese explorers whose very presence on this coastline — long before the arrival of Captain James Cook — could rewrite history… if only it could be found.
Reward-hunting archaeological digs in the decades since have only fuelled the Mahogany Ship’s legend, but the sea harbours many secrets and the low tide reveals nothing on our drive but deserted coves of irresistible, out-of-reach sand and precarious limestone archways carved by an unrelenting sea.
The wreck of the beckons us off the bitumen to climb crumbling cliffs and watch the waves, a poignant pause
