The Twelve Apostles are one of Australia’s most photographed natural landmarks.

Millions of visitors spend hours driving down the Great Ocean Road every year just to see them.

Possibly hundreds of millions of photos of them exist online, all over the world, on phones, tablets & computers and in photo albums and drawers.

Spectacular at any time of the day, but even more so at sunset, these internationally renowned limestone stacks were carved from the cliff face by wind and water over thousands of years.

Today they are known as the Twelve Apostles. But many questions about them remain unanswered.

Who first named them?

When did they name them?

And were there ever really 12 of them?

The history behind what we now know as the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park is a fascinating story.

The ancient history of the Twelve Apostles

The indigenous tribes who lived in the area for thousands of year, would surely have been the first to see these dramatic formations rising up from the sea. But it seems there is no recorded name for them among the local Kirrae Warrung people.

Perhaps because these pinnacles of limestone mostly likely formed very slowly over a long period of time, and given there are several other sea stacks along the coast, they probably didn’t think them unusual enough to be given a name.

It’s possible the first sightings of this area by Europeans were made by the Dutch in the 1600s, although there is no official record of them getting this far East. The first officially recording sighting of the Twelve Apostles was by George Bass, he of Bass Strait fame. But the name he chose for them in 1798, was the Sow and her Piglets. 

What we now know as Mutton Bird Island (the site of the Loch Ard wreck) was the Sow, and the other, comparatively smaller, sea stacks were the piglets. 

Any other names for the Twelve Apostles?

They also went through a period of being called the Pinnacles.

Who exactly first suggested the name the 12 Apostles and why they chose that is still shrouded in mystery.

The very first written record, linking the name the ‘Twelve Apostles’ to these Victorian offshore rock formations, appeared in the Melbourne newspaper ‘The Argus’ on December 25th 1897. It simply described them as the “Pinnacles or the Twelve Apostles”, which suggested the dual naming was already in place.

It is likely that these names were preferred to the Sow and her Piglets (or the Pig and Piglets) for tourism purposes, as the late 1800s saw a boom in visitors all over the Victorian coastline.

In 1890, a rail line had reached all the way down to the town of Timboon, which was just 17km from Portland. From there tourists could transfer to a coach and ride the rough track known today as the Old Coach Road.

Unlike today’s visitors to the Twelve Apostles, there were no platforms built for viewing, so people would simply have walked along the clifftops to find their own vantage points to take in the spectacular views of these natural wonders.

With such a long journey by train and coach, most visitors to the area would have stayed overnight in one of the local guesthouses, such as the Ozone, Rivernook and Fiji Coffee Palace which had sprung up to accommodate the growing number of tourists. In fact even today, many people chose to make the trip to the Twelve Apostles a 2 day tour, just to make it a far more relaxing experience staying overnight in Portland.

Why name them the Twelve Apostles?

As tourism to the area grew, it is likely the name the Twelve Apostles would have had much greater appeal from a marketing point of view than the Sow and her Piglets. Or even the Pig and Piglets.

But why not stick with the Pinnacles? 

One clue is that Australia in the Victorian era was a deeply religious country and perhaps the idea of a ‘religious pilgrimage’ to see them was fashionable at the time. After all, if you believe in God, then they are surely some of his finest work.

Another clue is that early sailors to the area were deeply religious too. And given the risks involved in being on a sailing ship in the 1700 and 1800s, were you stood a 1 in 2 chance of dying, sailors were prone to praying to various saints for their blessing for a safe voyage. But they also prayed to the original 12 Apostles. So there could be a link there too.

But the real puzzle is that there appears to have never been, in recent history at least, 12 of these formations grouped close together in this area.

At the time of first naming them, there were mostly likely only 9 Apostles. Since then 2 of the major sea stack formations have collapsed. One in 2005 and another in 2009. So from the viewing platforms today, you are likely to see seven main limestone stacks.

However, one possible explanation is this.

Viewing this area from the ocean, not the land, provides a different perspective. If you go further offshore out to sea, you will immediately see that there are an additional 2 sea stacks further down the coast at what is called the Gibson Steps. And with another in the opposite direction near Loch Ard Gorge, then adding the original 9, one could argue that perhaps there were 12 of them, in reasonably close formation, but only when seen from the ocean.

So perhaps the sailors did have an influence on the name after all.

How the Twelve Apostles were formed

The limestone cliffs of Victoria’s Shipwreck Coast, as reached by the Great Ocean Road, are under constant assault by the elements.

Limestone is not a very hardy rock and prone to erosion by wind and wave.

Every day the cliffs are exposed to the weather. Weather that can get very wild.

While typical swells along the coastline can produce waves between 3 to 5 metres high, during storms the waves can surge much, much higher.

Waves as high as 13 – 15 metres have been recorded off the coast during some of the most violent storms.

But it’s not just the waves.

The wind relentless blows against the cliffs, doing their own job of erosion.

In winter these winds blow straight off the Antarctic, thousands of kilometres to the south. 

It’s not unusual to have wind gusts of 60-80 km per hour. In storms they grow far more fierce. 

Cape Otway has recorded gusts in excess of 110km per hour. While the strongest ever recorded there was in excess of 145 km/h.

These winds literally sandblast the cliffs and together with the waves will create a section of cliff that juts out into the sea, like a finger. Soon the waves will carve out a cave then an arch. The arch will grow larger until the bridge joining the sea stack to the land eventually gives away, as happened at London Bridge in January 1990. Then you will have a new Apostle or sea stack.

The future of the Twelve Apostles

Whatever the past story of this spectacular rock formation off the Victorian coast, the future is fairly predictable.

Whatever number of sea stacks we have today, will change for one simple reason.

The forces that created them are constantly destroying them too.

100 years from now there could be 2 Apostles or 22 of them. 1000 years from now there could be none or 500. 

It’s an ever-changing landscape. A beautiful and spectacular landscape.

But for now, what we call the Twelve Apostles are still here. So get to see them while you can. Because they might not last much longer. 

The first time you see them as you round the path or take the ramp at the new Saddle Lookout, they will take your breath away. Literally.

Sunrise, sunset or the middle of the day, they are a truly spectacular sight. Not to be missed on any trip to Victoria.