The islands are close to each other, separated by narrow channels, and the coastline is rugged, with numerous deep inlets.

[4] Here, the narrow channel of Carnley Harbour (the Adams Straits on some maps) separates the main island from the roughly triangular Adams Island (97 km2 (37 sq mi)),[5] which is even more mountainous, reaching a height of 705 m (2,313 ft) at Mount Dick.

The main island features many sharply incised inlets, notably Port Ross at the northern end.

[5] Most of the islands have a volcanic origin, with the archipelago dominated by two 12-million-year-old Miocene shield volcanoes, subsequently eroded and dissected.

Like many other Subpolar oceanic climates, Port Ross, along with the Auckland Islands in general, are characterised by the near-constant overcast weather and never being too hot or too cold.

Traces of Polynesian settlement, possibly dating to the 13th century, have been found by archaeologists on Enderby Island.

Whalers and sealers set up temporary bases, the islands becoming one of the principal sealing stations in the Pacific in the years immediately after their discovery.

In 1842, a small party of 70 Māori and their Moriori slaves from the Chatham Islands migrated to the archipelago, surviving for about 20 years or so on sealing and flax growing.

The New Zealand authorities established and maintained three such depots, at Port Ross, Norman Inlet and Carnley Harbour from 1887.

[19] In 2019, a helicopter with three people on board crashed into the ocean near Enderby Island, when they were en route to uplift an ill man on a fishing trawler.

[24] From 1941 to 1945, the islands hosted a New Zealand meteorological station as part of a World War II coastwatching programme staffed by scientist volunteers and known for security reasons as the "Cape Expedition".

[25][23] Along with their other duties the Cape Expedition staff undertook biodiversity research and collected scientific specimens.

[30] Since then, many other botanists have studied the flora of the Auckland Islands, which comprises 228 vascular plant species, of which over 80% are indigenous and about 20% are introduced.

Inland from the salt-spray zone, the fringes of the islands predominantly feature forests of southern rātā Metrosideros umbellata, and in places the subantarctic tree daisy (Olearia lyallii), probably introduced by sealers.

The islands have 19 species of endemic freshwater invertebrates, including one mollusc, one crustacean, a mayfly, 12 flies and two caddisflies.

[38] The islands hold important seabird breeding colonies, among them albatrosses, penguins and several small petrels,[6] with a million pairs of sooty shearwater.

Landbirds include red-fronted and yellow-crowned parakeet, New Zealand falcon, tūī, bellbirds, pipits, and an endemic subspecies of tomtit.

[45] Introduced species have significantly negatively altered habitats and ecosystem processes, suppressed vegetation, and reduced or extirpated birds on many of the islands.

In addition, a marine reserve encompasses all of the Auckland Islands territorial sea and internal waterways.

When Andrew Fagan made a solo voyage there in a 5.4 metres (18 ft) plywood yacht (and nearly added to the shipwreck tally), he described the DOC permitting process thus: Not just anyone can go to the Auckland Islands.

They are now regarded as special environmentally preserved pieces of land, and to be allowed to go there and touch them, you have to be special as well... Not only, me, but the boat as well… I had been directed to Bluff or Dunedin (the choice was mine) to have the bottom of SW inspected by divers to ensure no nasty invasive seaweeds like Undaria were hitching a ride south to set up an environmentally unwanted colony, like the humans had done in 1850.