A journey through small-town New Zealand
(a generation on)
Neville Peat
The book
Summer, 1981. A youngish Neville Peat set out from Cape Reinga on his imported 10-speed bike 'Blue', aiming to cycle through small-town New Zealand from north to south, all the way to Stewart Island. The week before Easter, he reached his destination. He wrote a book about it, Detours: A journey through small-town New Zealand, which sold lots of copies and was broadcast on radio.
Many times in the intervening years, usually on anniversaries of the journey – ten years, fifteen years, twenty years – he wished to try a repeat journey, but life held other challenges. Now, as a leading author and in the age of the personal computer and cell phone, a very different world, he has revisited many of the towns and regions, not on a bicycle, but by car. In Detours – A generation on, he reflects once again on how small-town New Zealand is doing.
The author
NEVILLE PEAT is a leading natural history writer, whose prize-winning works include four regional natural history books (co-authored with Brian Patrick) and most recently Shackleton's Whisky (Random House, 2012). He received the prestigious Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers' Fellowship in 2007 and has been a Dunedin City Councillor since 2013.
Reviews
'One of our best travel books, rich with affectionate, perceptive narratives and insights ... this new edition confirms that is it is often very sobering to go back. But it makes an excellent, near-classic read available once more.' – Canvas, NZ Herald
'a travel classic!' – Wellington Post
Publication details
Paperback, 272 pages, ISBN 978 1 877372 39 1, $29.95
2007
OUT OF PRINT