Loch Ard Gorge, Port Campbell, Australia 1915

This photograph, taken around 1915 near Port Campbell, Victoria, captures the dramatic seascape of Loch Ard Gorge along Australia’s rugged Shipwreck Coast.

Towering limestone cliffs rise on either side of a narrow inlet, their stratified layers etched by centuries of wind and waves. Beyond, isolated sea stacks stand against the horizon, a reminder of the treacherous waters that claimed many ships in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The gorge itself takes its name from the Loch Ard, a clipper ship wrecked nearby in 1878, an event that became one of Australia’s most infamous maritime tragedies.

Native vegetation frames the scene in the foreground, softening the starkness of the rock and sea. The photograph preserves both the natural majesty of the Victorian coastline and its deep historical associations with survival, loss, and the meeting of human endeavor with nature’s force.