A love letter to the Galapagos

A Lifetime in Galapagos by Tui De Roy, Bateman, $72

Initially I wondered if the author — a wildlife photographer, writer and conservationist — came from New Zealand, on account of her first name. Alas, the curiosity was shortlived.

Her parents came from Brussels and sought a lifestyle that was selfsufficient and closer to nature.

They alighted on the Galapagos islands in 1955, on the day she turned 2, and what a life on the path less travelled she has experienced.

More than just a biography, this book is part awed tribute and part love letter to the remote Pacific archipelago, about 1000km off Ecuador, that played a big role in Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

De Roy took to photography at a young age and it is this talent that lifts the book from the coffee table. Sure, she does gorgeous sweeping broad-brush photos of the landscape but she also captures wildlife at an intimate level, and some of the images left me gasping.

In particular, her images of sea lions co-ordinating hunts by herding fish such as fast-swimming scad and tuna — which are nearly the size of the sea lions themselves — were breath-taking.

From swimming with hammerhead sharks to unblinkingly catching mating tortoises, from an iguana troughing out on a cactus to barn owls sharing a centipede, the photography reaps the rewards of her patience, familiarity and knowledge of her subjects — not to mention a deep-seated affinity.

It wasn’t until I got to the end of the book and read her bio that I realised De Roy does in fact have significant New Zealand connections. Among her several books is New Zealand: A Natural World Revealed. And she splits her time between living in New Zealand and her world travels.

A fitting first name then.

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