Port Ross

{{Short description|Natural harbour on Auckland Island, New Zealand}}

{{Use New Zealand English|date=April 2024}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}

File:FMIB 50805 Port Ross, with Provision-Depot.jpeg

File:Auckland islands topo.png

File:Through DNA fingerprinting that southern right whales are now migrating once again from sub-Antarctic islands to their ancestral calving grounds on the mainland of New Zealand.jpgs in Port Ross]]

Port Ross is a natural harbour on Auckland Island in the Auckland Islands Group, a subantarctic chain that forms part of the New Zealand Outlying Islands.

Guarding the mouth of Port Ross are Rose Island, Enderby Island, Ewing Island, and the tiny Ocean Island.

The harbour is the most well-established congregation ground for southern right whales in New Zealand waters.{{cite web|title=Other marine protection - Auckland Islands Marine Mammal Sanctuary|publisher=Department of Conservation|url=http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/marine-and-coastal/other-marine-protection/auckland-islands/|accessdate=2013-11-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150126190403/http://doc.govt.nz/conservation/marine-and-coastal/other-marine-protection/auckland-islands/|archive-date=26 January 2015|url-status=dead}}{{cite news |url=http://www.odt.co.nz/campus/university-otago/224263/whale-protection-call|title=Whale protection call |author=Elder, Vaughan |date=3 September 2012 |work=Otago Daily Times |accessdate=23 November 2013}}

In 1842, members of the Ngāti Mutunga Māori arrived in Port Ross from the Chatham Islands with Moriori slaves in an attempt to establish a settlement.[http://www.murihiku.com/TimeLine.htm Murihiku timeline] (Abandoned website). [https://web.archive.org/web/20120210004503/http://www.murihiku.com/TimeLine.htm Backup copy] at the Wayback Machine.Peat, Neville (2003) Subantarctic New Zealand: A Rare Heritage, Invercargill: Department of Conservation, {{ISBN|0-478-14088-6}}, p. 75

In the late 1840s, an agricultural and whaling community set up in Erebus Cove, on the harbour, and named Hardwicke. Due to the inhospitable climate, the settlement was abandoned within three years. A cemetery remains, later used to bury victims of shipwrecks. Survivors of the 1866 wreck of the General Grant set up a camp in the harbour, where they lived for 18 months before rescue. Later, castaway depots were established in Port Ross to provide succour for any sailors wrecked or marooned on the islands. In 1887, it provided relief for the survivors of the Derry Castle. It was also one of three sites occupied by the wartime Cape Expedition coastwatching stations established on New Zealand's subantarctic islands.