Named after Loch Ard, a clipper ship that sunk here back in the late 1800's, the gorge boasts a fascinating history. The boat itself makes up much of its past, where only two passengers survived the grounding – a 19-year-old apprentice, Tom Pearce, and 19-year-old Eva Carmichael, who was emigrating to Australia with her family. Pearce rescued Carmichael from the water, but she returned to Europe just three months after arriving in Australia as she lost four members of her family in the sinking. Eva Carmichael was haunted by memories of the maritime tragedy. In a rare insight into her post-shipwreck life, her great-grandson has told how she was unable to write about the tragedy, even in later years, because it still upset her. She died at the age of 73 in 1934 — 24 years after the other survivor, Tom Pearce, died at sea aged 49. “I think Eva was quite haunted by the shipwreck her whole life,” Richard Townshend said. “I know she was enormously grateful to the Australians who helped her, particularly the Gibsons for whom she had fond regard and of course a lifetime of letters to and from Jane Shields, who actually visited her in Ireland.” Ms Shields was Eva’s close companion while she was convalescing at Glenample Homestead before returning to Ireland where she married and raised a family. The Gibsons were a local family who played a key role in helping Eva and Tom recover from their ordeal. When the ship broke up on a reef off Mutton Bird Island, Tom clung to an upturned lifeboat and Eva to a chicken coop and spar before waves swept them into a gorge. He dragged the barely conscious Eva into a cave and then climbed the cliff to find two Glenample station hands.