Island Notes: Finding my place on Aotea Great Barrier Island

"We were still in our thirties when Julie Anne, Georgie and I walked up the valley that first time.

Purchase negotiations for the thirty hectares took a few weeks. More important than price, the owners wanted reassurance that we would take proper care of two horses that lived on its swampy paddocks. 

We were not buying the property, they were selling it to us. We had to be fit for the job."

An off-grid house on Aotea Great Barrier Island promises to fulfil one man's dreams, but he discovers to his cost that nothing can be taken for granted.

Part Man Alone, part love story, Island Notes explores questions of belonging, loss and impermanence and whether the life, seas and forests of a wild island can offer a reconciliation with our past.

Award-winning science writer and advocate for the wilderness Tim Higham has written a memoir that draws inspiration from some of the great nature writers, while establishing his own distinctive and informed voice and a sense of place that could only be Aotearoa.