Michael Veitch has long been fascinated by the islands of Bass Strait, between mainland Australia and Tasmania - a multitude of cold, dark isles, regularly pounded by atrocious weather and hardly visited, but rich in atypical Australian history. This is the story of his personal odyssey among them (plagued at times by appalling seasickness, airsickness and stinging nettles). He encounters a truly gothic Australia, full of shipwrecks, strange vegetation and thousand-foot cliffs, with tales of folly and heroism, brutality and extermination. The Forgotten Islands is an incredible, evocative read that shines a light on this little-known part of Australia and its extraordinary history.