Bianca Zander has an eye for character, location and time. Photo / Ken Downie
Bianca Zander has an eye for character, location and time. Photo / Ken Downie
It's 1978 and the inhabitants of Gaialands, an idealist vegan commune in the Coromandel, are living the sustainable dream. Although, please, don't be fooled into thinking it's a hotbed of free-loving flower children - a bunch of dirty hippies smoking hash and making love. Rather, it's a self-sufficient community, free from the shackles of capitalism and social conditioning.

 It's true, traditional monogamous relationships aren't all that important, although the adults can form partnerships if they want to and, as for the children, they're being raised as one amorphous tribe, with no idea who their siblings are or which adults are their biological parents. In theory, they're one big, happy family.

 However, as the seven children mature and develop, they also start to experience the natural urges that arrive with adolescence so, one day, the adults decide it is prudent to explain to the children from which branches of the family tree they have sprung. The adults might be relaxed about sexual freedom but they're not at all keen to promote incest. And fair enough, too.

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