She travelled to the end of the world for a new start.

She found the end of everything.

Ruth lives in the heart of the city. Working, drinking, falling in love: the rhythm of her vivid and complicated life there is set against a background hum of darkening news reports from which she deliberately turns away.

When her new relationship turns increasingly claustrophobic, Ruth chooses to leave behind her failing relationship, but also her beloved friends and family and travels to the other side of the world in pursuit of her dream life working with whales in New Zealand.

But as she walks dazedly through arrivals, news reports are turning increasingly hysterical, and calls to her family go straight to voicemail. Stranded far from home, with no real hope of survival, she finds herself climbing into the mouth of a beached whale alongside a stranger. When she emerges, it is to a landscape that bears no relation to the world they knew before.

When all has been razed to the ground, what does it mean to build a life? The Stranding is a story about the hope that can remain even when the world is changed beyond recognition.