Ethel Shipwreck

Now is a fantastic time to visit Innes National Park to see the Ethel shipwreck fully exposed. While South Australia has many historic shipwrecks, the Ethel is unusual for being on land rather than under water. Surrounded by towering cliffs, it lies on Ethel Beach within Innes National Park on the Yorke Peninsula, where it is normally covered by sand. This is the sixth time in as many years that the wreck has had its sandy blanket stripped away by heavy weather.

Built in 1876, the Ethel was a 711-tonne, three-masted iron ship. She ran aground in a storm while en route to South Africa in January 1904. One man drowned as he tried to swim ashore with a rescue line, but the rest of the crew reached land safely. The storm drove the ship onto the beach above the low tide mark, where it remained intact for many years.

The hull finally collapsed in the mid-1980s, but there is still plenty to see, with many large pieces of rusted iron jutting from the sand, clearly marking the ship’s outline. The boiler of a second wreck, The Ferret, lies stranded in the surf about 50 metres away.