Children

Meet the site

The Children was a wooden three-masted barque of 255 tons, built at Liverpool in 1824 and bought in 1837 by the Henty family of Portland for their coastal trade. On 14 January 1839, bound from Launceston to Portland with 38 people, livestock, stores and a cargo of house bricks, she was caught in hurricane-force winds and driven onto Needle Rock at what is now Childers Cove. Sixteen people died, including the master and first mate, and the survivors, several badly injured, spent days on the beach before help arrived from Port Fairy. It was the first major loss of life in a shipwreck on the Victorian coast and one of the earliest wrecks on what would become the Shipwreck Coast; the cove is named for the ship, with the spelling altered over time. Skeletons from the wreck were exposed by shifting sand in 1931, 1951 and 1963, and an anchor recovered in 1974 stands at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum in Warrnambool.

Almost nothing structural survives of a small wooden hull lost in the surf 185 years ago. The Scuba Doctor records that much of the wreck has been destroyed by constant sea movement and that the main remains are the scattered house bricks intended for Portland, lying in the sand gutters and reef edge off Needle Rock in about 3 m, along with occasional iron and ballast that the shifting sand uncovers. The reef itself has kelp, abalone, crayfish and small fish. It is a snorkel or a very short dive on the flattest of days, and the swim around the point from the cove is the only real challenge. The site's value is historical: it is a protected historic shipwreck on the Historic Shipwreck Trail with an interpretive sign above the cove, and the cove, with its stacks and sheltered beach, is a good place to spend a summer afternoon whether or not the sea allows a look at the bricks.

What you might see

Kelp, black-lip abalone, southern rock lobster, blue-throat wrasse, sea sweep, zebrafish, small fish in the cove shallows

Location

Remains of an 1839 wooden barque, one of the earliest wrecks on the coast, off Needle Rock at Childers Cove between Warrnambool and Peterborough, in about 3 m.

Facilities nearby

Car park and steps at Childers Cove, basic toilet at the car park, no water or shops; Warrnambool 30 km; nearest air fills Warrnambool.