Why a Booktrail?
1800s: Set against the backdrop of colonial nineteenth-century New Zealand, this is a saga of friendship, romance, and unforgettable adventure.
In the Land of the Long White Cloud
What you need to know before your trail
Helen Davenport works as the governess for a wealthy London household, but she longs for a family of her own. When she spots an advert in the paper asking for young women to travel to New Zealand and marry one of their honorable bachelors, she jumps at the opportunity.
Meanwhile, not far away in Wales, Gwyneira Silkham, is bored with high society. But when a mysterious New Zealand baron deals her father an unlucky blackjack hand, Gwyn’s hand in marriage is suddenly means a new life in New Zealand
The two women meet on the ship to Christchurch and become unlikely friends. Rich v poor but two women in the hope that their husbands will turn out to be their new start in life.
Travel Guide
This is the story of the colonalisation of New Zealand.
A country of sheep farming, dusty remote and barren land where the landscape and new culture is as much a characters as everything else. This is a land which was starting anew and where everything is to play for. The men want young fertile women from abroad. Two women running from their old lives to new ones they hope will prove to be better.
The journey and the prospect of what they will endure on the boat and what they will find when they arrive in New Zealand is an unnerving experience. A rocky journey in more ways than and once they arrive in the new country, the landscape which is dry and barren is their difficult future. Sheep farming is not the easiest of farming (if any farming can be called easy) and the weather and the new conditions they face are to ensure that their new lives are not going to be easy at all
This is a country which evokes interest in more than the colonists – the Maori and the colonists will come to see the new country as their own.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: In the Land of the Long White Cloud
Author/Guide Sarah Lark Destination: Christchurch Departure Time: 1800s
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