Oscar Garden: An Tale of One Man's Love of Flying by Annamaria Garden

$25.00 NZD

Category: Aviation | Reading Level: near fine

One day in 1930, a man walked into a department store in London and bought an aeroplane. Having just learned to fly, Oscar Garden dreamed of flying to Australia. In his newly purchased aeroplane, he did just that. This adventure and myriad others this risk-taker embarked on are recounted in this book. O scar's love of flying saw him joy riding to many places in the world, including New Zealand, South Africa, and up through Africa to Palestine. While based in London, he joined British Airways and Imperial Airways flying flying boats across the Empire. Finally, he came to rest in Auckland, New Zealand, after delivering the Awarua, the second of New Zealand's flying boats, used during World War II for communication and travel, reducing New Zealand's isolation. He became Chief Pilot of TEAL, the New Zealand airline, for half of the war years and beyond, and eventually resigned due to serious disagreement over management and political agendas. This biography describes Oscar Garden's fascinating journey through these episodes. ...Show more

The Logbook of the Captain's Clerk - Adventures in the China Seas

$15.00 NZD

Category: America | Series: The Lakeside Classics #93 | Reading Level: near fine

Islands of the Gulf by Shirley Maddock

$10.00 NZD

Category: Regional | Reading Level: good

The all-time classic telling of life in the 1960s Hauraki Gulf In 1964 trailblazing author Shirley Maddock and photographer Don Whyte made an extraordinary voyage around the Hauraki Gulf, documenting its people and places. This was a watershed moment in New Zealand history where New Zealanders were give n the opportunity to see themselves, not just in the pages of this book but also on screen. It was a time when the way of life on the Gulf islands was a resourceful one, largely cut-off from the outside world. The best-selling and much loved Islands of the Gulf is a precious record of a bygone era, and an enchanting must-have for New Zealand households, baches and boats. Right on Auckland's doorstep, across 4000 square kilometres of ocean lie some 40 islands - more if you count the gannet perches. In the early 1960s Shirley Maddock joined Captain Fred Ladd, the pilot whose jaunty seaplanes served those isolated island communities, to film New Zealand's first (locally produced) documentary series, Islands of the Gulf, publishing a book of the same name. Maddock would visit everyone from farmers to gumdiggers, rangers to nurses, flying through the morning haze to the rugged battlements of Great Barrier and the dim, bluish mound of Little Barrier; over the top of North Head to the bone white tower of the light on Tiritiri Matangi; beyond to Kawau, east to Rakino and the little Noises; south-east to the long golden lengths of Waiheke and Ponui, and last to the clouded peaks of the Moehau Ranges; and nearer to the inner harbour islands of Motutapu and Motuihe, Brown's Island with its lopped-off crater and, at the entrance to the Gulf, the last great volcano, Rangitoto. This new 2017 edition is being published to coincide with the remake of Islands of the Gulf showing on TV ONE prime-time later this year with Shirley Maddock's daughter, actress and writer, Elisabeth Easther. ...Show more

The Expedition of the St.Jean-Baptiste to the Pacific 1769-1770 from Journals of Jean de Surville and Guillaume Labe by John Dunmore

$30.00 NZD

Category: Nautical | Reading Level: very good

Mariners Are Warned! - John Lort Stokes and H. M. S. Beagle in Australia, 1837-1843 by Marsden Hordern

$45.00 NZD

Category: Nautical | Series: Miegunyah Press Ser. | Reading Level: very good

John Lort Stokes was commissioned by the British Hydrographic Office in 1837 to survey and chart unknown parts of the Australian coastline. He was the last Royal Navy surveyor to hold such a roving commission-as had Matthew Flinders and Phillip Parker King before him. The voyage lasted six years and his ship was H.M.S. Beagle, of Charles Darwin fame. Stokes circumnavigated Australia twice. In the north he discovered the Fitzroy, Albert and Flinders rivers and Port Darwin, and in the south charted that graveyard of sailing ships, Bass Strait. A century later, twelve of his charts were still in use. The occasional breathtaking foolhardiness of this earnest and conscientious man startles the reader, as it must have done his men. On a whim, Stokes twice risked drowning himself and others with him, and he made several daredevil escapes from crocodiles. The stories are gripping, and Marsden Hordern is a gifted and vigorous storyteller. He is ably assisted by the ship's mate, Helpman-a chatty, witty chronicler. Mariners are Warned! is an engrossing biography, written with empathy by a fellow mariner. Winner of the Age Book of the Year; Victorian Premier's Literary Award (A. A. Phillips Award for Australian Studies); Braille Book of the Year; Australian Maritime History Prize. Companion volume to King of the Australian Coast, another prize-winning maritime biography by the same author. ...Show more

From Survival to Revival: Auckland's Public Transport Since 1860 by Graham Bush

$40.00 NZD

Category: Regional | Reading Level: very good

This is the story of the evolution of Auckland's public transport since early colonial times which reveals much about the development of the city. From the pioneer entrepreneurs operating plodding horse-buses, through the dynamic construction of an outstanding electric tram system, a network of harbour ferry services and the brief interlude of trolley-buses to the electrification of suburban rail and the ubiquitous diesel bus, public transport has played a vital part in Auckland's living and lifestyle - this book tells it all. ...Show more

Fellowship of Three by A. W. Beasley

$16.00 NZD

Category: Nautical | Reading Level: very good

Storms and Dreams: Louis De Bougainville: Soldier, Explorer, Statesman by John Dunmore

$30.00 NZD

Category: Naval | Reading Level: very good

Louis-Antoine Comte de Bougainville (1729-1811) is best known for his circumnavigation of the globe from 1766 to 1769. Throughout a long and distinguished life, however, he participated in many of the turning points of world history: the birth of the United States, the fall of French Canada, the opening of the Pacific, the French revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, the crowning of Napoleon and the modernisation of France . Bougainville was also a witty and charming courtier, becoming one of Napoleon's senators. A true Man of the Enlightenment, he was gifted in navigation, seamanship, soldiering, mathematics, longitude and latitude – many of the arts that made his age one of most productive and creative in modern history. John Dunmore, a distinguished historian and an expert in French Pacific exploration, brings the man and his era to life in this vivid and elegantly written biography. ...Show more

A History of Port Lyttelton by W H Scotter

$40.00 NZD

Category: Shipping | Reading Level: very good

Eight Minutes Past Midnight - The Wreck of the S.S. Wairarapa by Steve Locker-Lampson; Ian Francis

$45.00 NZD

Category: Shipping | Reading Level: very good

Tells the story of the wrecking of the Union Steamship Company's S.S. Wairarapa at Miners Head, Great Barrier Island ian the early morning of 29 October 1894.

Voyages to Hawaii Before 1860 by Bernice Judd

$20.00 NZD

Category: Pacific | Reading Level: very good

enlarged and edited by Helen Yonge Lind

In the Heart of the Sea: The Epic True Story That Inspired "Moby Dick" by Nathaniel Philbrick

$12.00 NZD

Category: Nautical | Reading Level: very good

The Number One best-selling, epic true-life story of one of the most notorious maritime disasters of the 19th century, beautifully reissued alongside Philbrick's new paperback, Sea of Glory. The sinking of the whaleship Essex by an enraged spermwhale in the Pacific in November 1820 set in motion one of the most dramatic sea stories of all time: the twenty sailors who survived the wreck took to three small boats (one of which was again attacked by a whale) and only eight of them survived their subsequent 90-day ordeal, after resorting to cannibalising their mates. Three months after the Essex was broken up, the whaleship Dauphin, cruising off the coast of South America, spotted a small boat in the open ocean. As they pulled alongside they saw piles of bones in the bottom of the boat, at least two skeletons' worth, with two survivors - almost skeletons themselves - sucking the marrow from the bones of their dead ship-mates. ...Show more