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.

From the Great Ocean Road at Nirranda (or from Allansford near Warrnambool via Childers Cove Road) follow Childers Cove Road south to the car park above the cove, about 30 km east of Warrnambool. Steps lead down to the sheltered beach at Childers Cove, which is a popular swimming spot in summer; there are neighbouring beaches at Sandy Bay and Murnanes Bay. The wreck lies about 150 m south of the beach off Needle Rock; swim out from the sand around the point in flat conditions.

No boat access; the Bay of Islands ramp is 15 km east.

Childers Cove is a small, relatively sheltered inlet, but Needle Rock and the wreck site lie outside it on an exposed limestone shore facing south-west. The Scuba Doctor notes strong currents typical of the Shipwreck Coast. Dive only with swell under about 0.5 m and offshore northerly winds; any southerly swell breaks over the reef around Needle Rock.

Visibility is poor in surge and after rain. Low to mid tide exposes more of the gutters, but a rising tide is safer for the return around the point. Sands shift continually and have exposed and reburied the site repeatedly.

A few days a year.

Enter from Childers Cove beach, swim out and south around the point to Needle Rock in flat conditions, and search the sand gutters and reef edge in 2–3 m for scattered house bricks, ballast and iron. Keep the rock as a reference, turn well before half gas, and return around the point into the cove with the tide rising. Abort if any set is breaking on the point.

No operator – occasional shipwreck enthusiasts and Warrnambool club divers on flat days; Childers Cove itself is a well-used snorkelling beach.