High Country Lark

An award-wining writer travels through the New Zealand high country. An unusual summons from an old, itinerant acquaintance - known as the Lark - piques author Neville Peat's curiosity. The invitation to meet in the mountains around Glenorchy is timely: he's keen to head into the high country to investigate recent reports of sightings of the near-extinct kokako. The South Island high country has an allure all its own. New Zealand's equivalent of the Wild West, it's a rustic, spectacularly beautiful frontier, combining wild alpine beauty, beech forest and mirror-still lakes. The Head of Lake Wakatipu has attracted Maori for the dazzling local pounamu; its sublime beauty has seduced European tourists, artists, writers and farm-holders since the nineteenth century. Author Neville Peat sets off on a fascinating trail that takes him deep into the hills to explore local history, legend and land politics. He skilfully blends the characters and stories of the past - those of Arawata Bill and Joseph Fenn among them - with a powerful sense of place and concerns for the future. In prose as fine as snow-caps reflected in lake water, Peat brings us an extraordinary region - from the laconic humour of the locals, to the last chance we might have to halt the demise of several threatened native species. High Country Lark is the third in Peat's acclaimed 'Lark' series.

Neville Peat is an award-winning author and photographer of over 30 books, covering themes of geography, biography, natural history and the environment. His biographies include the bestselling Hurricane Tim: The Story of Sir Tim Wallis. In the late 1970s he spent two summers at Scott Base, New Zealand's Antarctica station on Ross Island, as a journalist and photographer, and has written five books on Antarctic themes. In 2007 he was awarded New Zealand's most valuable literary prize, the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers' Fellowship for a book about the Tasman Sea (The Tasman: Biography of an ocean). Wild Dunedin: Enjoying the natural history of New Zealand's wildlife capital (with Brian Patrick) won the 1996 Natural Heritage category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and their Wild Fiordland was shortlisted in 1997. In 1994 he was named Dunedin Citizen of the Year, in acknowledgement of his books on the region and his work in establishing the Dunedin Environmental Business Network. He has served as a councillor and as deputy chair on the Otago Regional Council, and has chaired it Environment and Science Committee.Neville's other books include: Snow Dogs: The huskies of Antarctica; Detours; The Incredible Kiwi; Land Aspiring: The story of Mount Aspiring National Park; Coasting: The sea lion and the lark; Subantarctic New Zealand: A rare heritage; Antarctic Partners: 50 years of New Zealand and United States Cooperation in Antarctica, 1957-2007; High Country Lark; and Seabird Genius: The Story of L. E. Richdale, the royal albatross and the yellow-eyed penguin. Shackelton's Whiskey was published in 2012. He has undertaken commissioned work for Otago Museum, and his comprehensive report on the sub-Antarctic islands earned World Heritage Area status for five groups of the islands. Neville is a fifth-generation descendant of Scottish pioneers in Otago. He lives at Broad Bay, Otago Peninsula; the family home fittingly near populations of royal albatross, yellow-eyed penguin, New Zealand (Hooker's) sea lion and New Zealand fur seal, about which Neville has written many times. See www.nevillepeatsnewzealand.com.