Daren
Loosely termed a 'coffee table book', this really means a large format book with fantastic photographs, and usually more of the photographs than words. Certainly the photographs are fantastic - detailed pictures of flora and fauna, especially birds, but also historic photographs showing the human history of these islands.
Divided into sections - one for each island group (Chatham Islands, Bounty Islands, Antipodes Islands, Campbell Island, Auckland Islands, The Snares, and Macquarie Island), it steps through various aspects (Geography & Geology, Flora, Fauna, History).
It has an introduction, describing these groups of islands in the Southern Ocean, basically on the way to Antarctica from New Zealand. There is also a section on the future, a detailed bibliography and an index.
I bought this book after the (tourism) expedition I went on that visited The Snares, Auckland Island, Macquarie Island and the Auckland Islands. It departed from and returned to Bluff (near Invercargill, New Zealand), and was with the company founded by Rodney Russ (the author).
This is a great book for the basic facts around the islands, plus the history of each including the many ships wrecked and men stranded on these island groups. There are two outliers included here - one is The Chatham Islands - because they are not really subantarctic, they are too far north, but also because they have been inhabited since the 14th Century, whereas the other islands have had only minor sporadic settlements. The other outlier is Macquarie Island, which is a governed as a part of Tasmania by Australia (so I needed a passport to visit!).
Re-reading this brought back great memories of my trip in December 2019.
5 stars.
Loosely termed a 'coffee table book', this really means a large format book with fantastic photographs, and usually more of the photographs than words. Certainly the photographs are fantastic - detailed pictures of flora and fauna, especially birds, but also historic photographs showing the human history of these islands.
Divided into sections - one for each island group (Chatham Islands, Bounty Islands, Antipodes Islands, Campbell Island, Auckland Islands, The Snares, and Macquarie Island), it steps through various aspects (Geography & Geology, Flora, Fauna, History).
It has an introduction, describing these groups of islands in the Southern Ocean, basically on the way to Antarctica from New Zealand. There is also a section on the future, a detailed bibliography and an index.
I bought this book after the (tourism) expedition I went on that visited The Snares, Auckland Island, Macquarie Island and the Auckland Islands. It departed from and returned to Bluff (near Invercargill, New Zealand), and was with the company founded by Rodney Russ (the author).
This is a great book for the basic facts around the islands, plus the history of each including the many ships wrecked and men stranded on these island groups. There are two outliers included here - one is The Chatham Islands - because they are not really subantarctic, they are too far north, but also because they have been inhabited since the 14th Century, whereas the other islands have had only minor sporadic settlements. The other outlier is Macquarie Island, which is a governed as a part of Tasmania by Australia (so I needed a passport to visit!).
Re-reading this brought back great memories of my trip in December 2019.
5 stars.