History
Holbourne Island became well known in 1875, when 18 survivors of the shipwreck SS Gothenburg reached its shores. Four survivors arrived on a damaged port lifeboat on 25 February, where they survived by eating raw bird's eggs and drinking rain water that had pooled in the island rocks. The following day, 14 survivors from a starboard lifeboat also landed. Because rescue was uncertain, the survivors engraved their names on the concave side of a large turtle shell, which is displayed in the South Australian Museum, on North Terrace in Adelaide.
On Sunday, 28 February, 15 of them set off in the starboard lifeboat for an island about 20 miles (32 km) away to the south, which seemed to be more in the track of ships. A rescue ship sent looking for survivors of the Gothenburg, picked up the group and took them safely to Bowen. The ship subsequently returned to Holbourne Island and rescued the three remaining survivors.
Read more about this topic: Holbourne Island National Park
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“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
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—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)