Historical Features:
Originally named the Penantipodes because of its situation near the antipodes of London, the group was discovered in 1800 by Captain Waterhouse of H.M.S. Reliance. An American sealer under the command of Captain Pendleton was the first to station a sealing gang on the Antipodes, when the brig the Union of New York left an officer and 11 men there in 1804. On returning to Sydney the Union of New York sailed for Fiji and disaster, for the ship was lost and the entire crew massacred. The sealing gang was eventually rescued in 1805 after more than a year on the Antipodes. The gang had collected almost 60,000 skins. Other sealing gangs visited these Islands, but by the 1830's the seals were all but extinct and there was no further sealing.
In the early 1880's there was renewed interest in these Islands for the penguin skin trade. A large number of these skins were collected to meet a demand for fashionable ladies' muffs.
On September 4, 1893 (while on a passage from Rangoon to Talcaguano with a cargo of rice) the Spirit of Dawn was totally wrecked on a reef off the Antipodes Island. Five members of the crew, including the Captain, were drowned. The remaining eleven members of the crew made it into a life boat and were able to land on the Island. During their stay on the Island their only food consisted of mutton birds, mussels and roots. They had to eat these raw as they had no means of lighting a fire. They remained on the Island for 87 days without a fire, during which time they lived in a cave beneath an overhanging bluff.
They hoisted a flag above the cove on the highest point of the Island, which was eventually seen by the crew of the Government Steamer Hinemoa. The survivors had never found the Government depot which was four to five hours walk from their camp. This contained clothing and provisions which would have made their enforced stay a little more pleasant.
On March 13, 1908 the President Felix Faure was completely wrecked on the Antipodes Island. Her entire crew of 22 managed to reach the shore and were rescued by H.M.S. Pegasus in early May of the same year. The survivors found the Provisions Depot which had been established by the New Zealand Government. They lived on albatrosses, penguins and shellfish. At one stage they caught a calf, but the bull, cow and sheep which had been left for food by the Government had all died. It was a particularly cold sixty days,(with rain, hail and snow on all but four of them), that they had too endure before they were rescued.
