The SS Empire Gladstone was one of the hundreds of standard cargo ships built in Britain during the Second World War. Launched in 1944 at Sunderland, she was 7,090 tons, 450 feet (137 m) long and 56 feet wide, powered by a triple-expansion engine with three coal-fired boilers. In August 1944 she carried troops and vehicles of the First Belgian Brigade to Normandy. After the war she was chartered to the Adelaide Steamship Company, and on 1 September 1950 she left Whyalla for Newcastle with iron ore and 159 car bodies.

On the evening of 5 September 1950, Captain John Lennie, on his last voyage before retirement, kept close inshore to avoid the current. The fourth engineer steered for what he took to be a lighthouse, but the lights turned out to be those of Merimbula Wharf. At 7.55 pm the ship's stern struck the reef of Haystack Rock, off Haycock Point about 8 km south-east of Merimbula. She broke her back and could never be refloated. The crew stayed aboard for days while Eden trawlers took the car bodies ashore, then abandoned ship when the weather worsened. One crewman said it was his ninth shipwreck.

Today the wreck is the largest remaining in NSW, lying east–west with the stern towards shore in no more than about 12 m. McFadyen found it much more broken in 2005 than in 1989. Highlights include the raised rear accommodation area (covered in mussels, which you can swim into with light streaming through), the prop shaft tunnel, a detached stern section of the tunnel, the propeller lying on the bottom, a large double bollard, a huge flywheel, the broken engine and two boilers, and a hill of bow wreckage at 6 m beside the Haystack Rock bommie. Iron ore is scattered everywhere. Crevices are packed with fish – blackfish, blue groper, yellowtail and silver sweep. The shallow depth makes it ideal for Open Water divers.

Boat access only. Merimbula Divers Lodge runs its boats from Merimbula; private boats launch at the Merimbula ramps inside the lake and cross the Merimbula bar, or use the ramps at Pambula Lake or Eden (Quarantine Bay) for sites towards the south. From Merimbula it is about 20 minutes to the wreck, partly because of the 8-knot limit on the lake and bar (McFadyen).

The wreck lies on the southern side of Haystack Rock, the outermost point of the southern headland of Merimbula Bay (Haycock Point in Beowa National Park). Dive boats usually anchor near the boilers at McFadyen's mark.

The wreck is on an exposed headland and, being shallow, surges heavily in any significant swell; it needs calm conditions (Merimbula Divers Lodge). Southerly and easterly swell are the usual problems. Crossing the Merimbula bar also depends on swell and tide.

Visibility is often good but falls after heavy rain.

From the boilers, swim west along the starboard side to the stern, through the raised rear accommodation area, out past the end of the prop shaft to the propeller lying about 10 m south-west and the double bollard. Look at the detached shaft-tunnel section 20 m north, then return east along the port side past the flywheel, broken engine and two boilers to the hill of bow wreckage at 6 m beside the Haystack Rock bommie.

Protected historic shipwreck (over 75 years old since 2025) under the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018 – no removal of artefacts.

Merimbula Divers Lodge runs it regularly as an Open Water boat dive (max 12 m; 'perfect for Open Water divers with some boat experience'). Also dived from private boats from Merimbula and Pambula.