A Kilometre From Home

Not Loch Ard but on the Great Ocean Road.

During a trip to Melbourne, my family and I drove out along the coast and stopped at a place called Loch Ard Gorge. My wife, our children, my in-laws — none of us really knew what to expect. It is a beautiful stretch of coastline, with views that take your breath away.

Then I read the displays.

I cannot tell you now exactly what they said, word for word. But they told the story of a shipwreck, and something in it stayed with me long after we drove away. When I got home, it bothered me enough that I went looking, and read more about what had happened there.

In 1878, a boat called Loch Ard left England for Melbourne[1], carrying fifty-four people — to the other side of the world. The same journey today could be completed in a day; but life back then was different. For roughly three months they sailed. Across the Atlantic, around the bottom of the world, through the long emptiness of the Southern Ocean. Just nearing the end, the hard part was behind them. They were a day from port.

Then the fog came in.

In the early hours of the first of June, the mists parted and those on board could see the shore. It was about a kilometre away. Then, the Loch Ard struck the cliffs near Mutton Bird Island.

Within minutes the ship was gone. Of the fifty-four aboard, two survived.

One kilometre. One kilometre left. After fourteen thousand kilometres. They had crossed the world. They had done the difficult, patient, dangerous work of the long voyage. They failed within sight of the harbour. Of their destination.

It would be easy to read this as a lesson about vigilance. Stay alert. Do not relax before the finish. And there is some truth in that. But in this case, I think, this is not what happened.

Because from what I understood, the captain was no fool. He knew that stretch of coast and its reputation. The watch was kept. The danger was understood. And it happened anyway.

We tell ourselves a comforting narrative. If we are careful enough, disciplined enough, awake enough, we will survive. That diligence is the answer to disaster. And diligence matters enormously. But it is not the same as a guarantee. Some fog rolls in regardless of how good a sailor you are, and blinds you to the rocks below.

Both frightening, and freeing.

For me, this is both frightening, and freeing.

Frightening, because it means none of us are fully in control of how our story ends. We can do everything right and still meet the cliffs.

Freeing, because once you accept that failure is genuinely possible — not as a sign of weakness, but as a permanent feature of being alive — you start to live differently. You stop trying to build a life that cannot fail, because no such life exists. You start building one that can survive failing.

Those are very different projects.

A life that cannot fail is brittle. It depends on everything going right. It runs the ship as lean and as fast as possible, because nothing is held back for the wave you did not see coming. A life that can survive failure looks different. It keeps something in reserve. It does not stake everything on arriving exactly on schedule, exactly as planned. It leaves room — for fog, for delay, for the things no watch can prevent.

And there is a second, quieter, story here. If we live only for the harbour, we miss the voyage entirely. The people on the Loch Ard spent three months at sea — three months of sky and ocean and the slow rhythm of the days. That was not just time to be endured on the way to somewhere better. That was their life, too, happening as they sailed. It would be a different kind of tragedy to cross the whole world with your eyes fixed only on the port, and never once look up. The room we leave is not only for disaster. It is for living now — for the coffee, the conversation, the trip along the coast with the people you love. A plan that sacrifices every today for a tomorrow that may never come is its own kind of shipwreck. The destination matters. So does the journey. A good life, like a good plan, holds both.

This is true of how we live, and it is true of how we plan. The financial version of running a lean ship is a plan built for the perfect voyage — no buffer, no margin, every dollar stretched to its limit, the whole thing depending on nothing going wrong, and only living at the end. It looks efficient right up until the fog comes in.

I would rather help someone build the other kind. Not a plan that promises calm seas, because I cannot promise that and neither can anyone. A plan with a little room in it. One that holds the possibility of failure honestly — and is built, quietly, to survive it, or at least die with minimal regrets. A plan that is for tomorrow, while living today.

The people on the Loch Ard did everything the voyage asked of them. I think of them now not as a warning to try harder, but as a reminder to hold our plans, and our lives, with a little humility. We are never quite as in control as we feel on a calm night, a day from port.

So sail well. Keep the watch. But build the kind of life — and the kind of plan — that accounts for both the journey and the destination.

Because sometimes you do everything right, and you are still only a kilometre from home.

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I write on topics related to financial habits and decisions. Do explore my other articles at https://www.williamseah.com/blog if the ideas resonate. Drop me an email at reach.william@gmail.com or text me at 9673 1523 if you'd like to chat over coffee or whisky.

[1] https://www.aroundandabout.com.au/the-loch-ard-shipwreck/. Other facts were what I could recall from the boards at the location; do forgive me if I made mistakes. You can also read more at https://www.flagstaffhill.com/sites/flagstaffhill.com/files/The%20loch%20ard%20wreck%20and%20loch%20ard%20peacock.pdf