The island of disappointment

With a name like Disappointment Island, there has to be a story there right?
Well there is, but it's not really about the name or how it got it, but rather about horror shipwrecks, starvation and eventual rescue.
Little Disappointment Island is one of seven uninhabited islands in the Auckland Islands chain, 475 km south of the South Island.
Now its claim to fame is as the home to nearly the entire world’s population of white capped albatrosses.
But it used to be known for the number of shipwrecks and stranded crews there.
The most famous is the General Grant - which wrecked on one of the other small islands and the remaining crew made for Disappointment (see how nicely that works) Island.
The wreck left 15 people alive out of 58 passengers and 25 crew, along with a cargo of wool, skins, 2,576 ounces of gold, and 9 tons of zinc spelter ballast.
The fortune in gold has led to numerous attempts to find the ship, with no luck to date.
But well after the General Grant, in 1907, the four-masted steel barque Dundonald, sailing out of Sydney, heading to Britain with a cargo of wheat, became another disappointment.
The ship was forced onto rocks during a squall on the west coast of Disappointment Island and sank.
Seventeen of the 28 crew managed to escape and reach shore although one man, Walter Low, slipped off the cliff and fell into the sea while another died of exposure 18 days later.
For seven months the rest survived - although barely. They ate raw mollymawks (a type of albatross) until their matches dried enough to start a fire that they kept going.
For shelter they dug into the ground and constructed a sod roof.
They knew there was a food depot about 8km away on one of the bigger islands and built a small boat. The first three men managed to make it to the island but could not find the food.
The little boat was smashed so another was built and a further attempt was made. Four men managed to get to the island and make their way to Port Ross, harbour on the island where they found the food and another boat.
The rest of the crew were ferried from Disappointment Island to Port Ross where they were finally rescued in November that year by the scientific vessel Hinemoa captained by John Bollons.
Although he found them on his trip out to the Campbell Islands, he did not actually rescue them until his trip home.
On board the Hinemoa was Edward Kidson, the son of Charles and Christiana Kidson in Bilston, Staffordshire, England coming to New Zealand when he was three.
Kidson became a meteorologist and travelled extensively carrying out surveys. During the First World War he served in the Royal Engineers developing a forecasting service for artillery.
It was during a survey trip that he was on the Hinemoa. He wrote a diary that his wife Isabel later published. Kidson said all on the Hinemoa were amazed to come across the survivors of the Dundonald.
They told him that they had tied messages to albatrosses in a vain hope of rescue.
In 1927 Kidson was recruited to the New Zealand Meteorological service where he was director for 12 years.
Kidson died suddenly on June 12, 1939 and is buried in Karori Cemetery.
There is a small cemetery on Auckland Island where Jabaz Peters - the first mate of the Dundonald was buried. With him are a small number of burials from a short lived settlement .