The Wharf at Waterfall Bay

The inspiring and entertaining story of a determined young woman alone, who overcame the isolation of her family farm to build a flourishing business.

When Lisa Harper returned to her family’s farm at the head of remote Mahau Sound, in the Marlborough Sounds, after years overseas working as a scientist, she showed all the pluck and entrepreneurial streak of the earlier generations of women in her family.

The isolation wasn’t going to deter her from starting a new business. After all, her grandmother and mother were made of stern stuff, coping with running stock, keeping an orchard, securing a commercial fishing quota, making cheese, operating a guest house, home-schooling children and only getting to ‘town’ on a treacherous road every six weeks.

Eight years later Lisa was an award winning traditional cheesemaker and a Nuffield Fellowship winner when she had to make a major decision to wrench herself from Mahau Sound Bay to secure her future.

The Wharf at Waterfall Bay is a story of enterprise and determination, of a young woman determined to fulfill her dream.