Looked so peaceful the day we visited but history is tragic. The Loch Ard, an iron-hulled clipper ship that was lost in 1878 while sailing from England to Melbourne. Voyaging along the southern Australian coast the Loch Ard was caught in continuous fogs that left her captain mistakenly thinking he was some 50 miles out from the treacherous rocks and cliffs and the 1700-tonne ship was dashed on to rocks. Only two people from the 54 passengers and crew survived. A cabin boy called Tom Pearce helped save a young woman Eva Carmichael, who had been washed on wreckage into the cove now known as Loch Ard Gorge. After they spent the night in a cave Pearce climbed the gorge's cliffs and eventually found help.