High country station tales celebrated in book

Old friends and even older links were brought together at Paper Plus on Friday when writer Bruce Ansley and photographer Peter Bush were in Masterton talking about their book, A Fabled Land.

Mr Ansley said the book, which was released last month, is about the history of the scenic Mesopotamia Station in Canterbury, and also follows the ups and downs of the Prouting family over the past 70 years.

Mr Bush came up with the idea for the book. He visited the station about 40 years ago with friends to go hunting, and they became stranded by the river for a couple of days.

They were helped by the Prouting family, who took the group and their hired Land Rover back to Christchurch - and they have been friends ever since.

"It is different to any other place that you could visit in New Zealand," he said.

"I felt pretty privileged to make friends with those people."

Mr Bush was also a celebrated All Black photographer, and former All Black Trevor Morris went along to Friday's event to catch up with his old friend.

Mr Morris took along some photos of his mother, Myrtle Rosewarn, at the station when she lived there in the 1920s.

Mr Bush was impressed by the images, saying he probably would have used them in the book if he had seen them earlier.