Recent Publication: Neville Peat, Stewart Island: Rakiura National Park (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2015). 72 pp. ISBN 978-1-927322-35-2.  NZ$29.95 paperback.

This handy guidebook to Stewart Island is written by the author of Stewart Island: The Last Refuge (1991) and more recently Rakiura Heritage (2014). An earlier edition of the guidebook was published as Stewart Island: A Rakiura Ramble in 2000, but it has now been completely revised and redesigned, and thus takes in developments such as the creation of Rakiura National Park in 2002. It is richly illustrated with more than 70 colour photographs, as well as colour maps of the island and the Halfmoon Bay / Paterson Inlet area, and has a comprehensive index, together with suggestions for future reading. While visitors will benefit most from the sections on walks and tramping, the fourth chapter (‘A Rare and Special Nature’) provides a concise overview of Stewart Island’s wildlife and conservation history, and there are also interesting snippets of settlement history throughout.