Sunset in Spain

A warm, funny and poignant story of a couple s search for new challenges while pursuing a long-held dream of living la vida loca in northern Spain.

Bidding adios to work and Sydney, Erna and Alex decide to pursue a dream of living in the north of Spain. They fall in love with a tiny Castilian village, and set about restoring a long-forgotten, falling down villa that will soon be their new home. Letting go of old ways, they get swept up in the colourful goings-on of their Spanish neighbours and the challenges of living a new life on a new continent - all while becoming minor celebrities among baffled locals who can't understand why anyone would want to cross the world to live in their modest village.

Sunset in Spain is a warm, funny and poignant story of a couple's search for new challenges and the joys to be had in ramping things up when most of us would be happy to start winding down.

About the Author

Erna Walraven was born in the Netherlands and moved to Spain as a young adult, before moving to Australia in her late twenties. She worked as a translator and interpreter of Dutch, German, French, Spanish and English, as well as a kennel-maid, zookeeper, petrol pump attendant, waitress, aged care worker, farmhand, conveyancing clerk, debt collector and a dog washer. She eventually settled for zoology, as Senior Curator at Taronga Zoo in Sydney for two decades, where she was responsible for the care of some 400 wild animal species.

Erna's career has inspired her to write many nonfiction books about animals. Her latest, Wild Fathers what wild animal dads teach is about fatherhood was published by New Holland in 2021. She has travelled to most of Earth's continents, and she's currently planning a trip to Antarctica to achieve her life goal of seeing all the penguin species of the world.

Erna's long-harboured dream of living in Spain again came true when she and her husband Alex returned in retirement and bought a falling-down villa to make their home.