Fiordland Explored: An Illustrated History - John Hall-Jones

Fiordland Explored is an illustrated history of one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand. To this land of great glacier-carved fiords came the early navigators, Cook, Vancouver, and a Spanish expedition under Malaspina. Cook spent six weeks in Dusky Sound on his second voyage. In Doubtful Sound we find a little pocket of Spanish names, the only ones in New Zealand. Then came the sealers reaping their rich harvest. In Dusky Sound we find the first European house in New Zealand, also the first shipwreck and the first shipbuilding. Later the explorers ventured into the interior to discover the great southern lakes and the passes leading through the mountains. Men such as Nairn and Stephen, the first Europeans to see Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri. Quintin Mackinnon who discovered the route of the now famous Milford Track. Henry Homer who found a suitable saddle for the Homer Tunnel.

Little towns followed in their wake, Te Anau and Manapouri both of which thrived. Jamestown which failed because of its isolation and the gold towns of Preservation Inlet which disappeared after the gold ran out. Here too are the lives of Richard Henry, the Caretaker of Resolution Island and Donald Sutherland, the hermit of Milford Sound. The story of the rediscovery of the notornis and a fascinating chapter on the Lost Tribe of Fiordland.

John Hall-Jones tells it all and more in this meticulously researched book in which he has tramped into all the places that he writes about. He has also assembled an outstanding collection of old photographs and sketches to go with the text. 

Published in 1976 by Craig Printing.

Condition: very good secondhand book. Dust jacket condition: poor, split in two pieces/torn, fading on spine.

First Edition. 26 cm, xii, 148 pp, maps on eps, illustrations, black and white photos.

Hardback.