The GealachPress The Seals of Lutruwita Paperback

In 1876, a rumour stirs across the high country of lutruwita/Tasmania -a creature is said to move beneath the cold surface of yingina, the Great Lake. As hunters and seekers push into the interior, two young travellers choose a different path.Saoirse, born to Irish/Scots lineage and learning the subtle language of the land, meets Ernest, a Palawa-Irish boy whose knowledge of Country is both lived and inherited. Together they walk through frost¿bitten nights, shifting ground, and the tightening machinery of colonial expansion, guided by story, instinct, and the fragile trust forming between them.What begins as a search becomes a quiet act of resistance: a journey shaped by listening, by care, and by the belief that some things are not meant to be claimed. As the children move deeper into the wilderness, the creature they seek becomes both presence and possibility-a reminder of what endures beneath fear, ambition, and the noise of empire.The Seals of Lutruwita is a contemplative tale of friendship, Country, and moral courage, inspired by the strange but true Bunyip sightings of Australia's late nineteenth century.