Dabbling in Central West Queensland’s recent past.

Central West Queensland is a vast area. Bordered by the Northern Territory and South Australia to the west the region covers about 400,000 square kilometres but is sparsely populated. Towns such as Longreach, Winton, Birdsville, Blackall, Barcaldine, Boulia and Muttaburra help to tether this strong agricultural district. In parts criss-crossed by the waterways and rivulets [...]

A Bush Education

I was a child of both home schooling and our local public school, before being sent to boarding school. Mum taught myself and my siblings around the dining room table as by that time the schoolhouse on our property had been converted into extra accommodation for jackeroos. The last time the building had been used [...]

By | March 2nd, 2023|Blog, Family history, Outback Australia|0 Comments

Conjuring fiction from family legend.

Quite often when I'm writing I'll recall a story my father told me, or dig through our archives and find a forgotten document as in the case of The Last Station, and presto. Rummaging through the past can yield fascinating information and it was while doing just that a few years ago that I recalled [...]

The Afghan Cameleers – Providing a vital service & yet the victims of prejudice

From the 1860s to the 1930s Afghan cameleers were indispensable in servicing Australia’s inland pastoral regions. Although known generically as Afghans these expert teamsters came from the North-West frontier province (then under British rule) now known as Pakistan as well as Iran, India, Afghanistan, Egypt and Turkey. ‘Harry’ the first camel to arrive in Australia [...]

The Last Station – What’s it about!

The Last Station Well, here it is at last. My eleventh novel. Out March 1st. It took some wrangling to get this one into shape. The initial concept came to me some years ago, having decided upon the Darling River as the touchstone for the work. A river that is vital, changeable, and ultimately unreliable [...]

Historic Murki Homestead destroyed by fire (Boomi, NSW. Australia)

Yesterday morning the Murki Homestead burnt to the ground. Four generations of Alexanders lived there, from my great-grandfather’s time through to my generation; 1893-2016. It was here that the early beginnings of our business were established, and over the years the house grew to accommodate successive families. Beneath its roof men and women discussed the [...]

Massive trees & a canvas roof – One of our earliest woolsheds.

The woolshed at Jondaryan on Queensland’s Darling Downs is one of the oldest and largest shearing sheds in the world. Heritage listed, Jondaryan Station dates to 1840, when English born Charles Coxen sent his nephew off on an expedition to find suitable pastoral land for his rural aspirations. The lad had a good eye for [...]

What the Irish famine and Australia have in common.

It’s said that everything and everyone is interconnected in some way. I often find when I’m sleuthing for facts when writing that some snippet of information will pop up and I’m left pondering the events that link people and places together. This happened about twelve months ago when I was reading up on the Strzelecki [...]

Researching in the Strzeleckie Desert – The story behind The Cedar Tree Part 2

Why place a character in the middle of no-where? In The Cedar Tree, Italian-raised Stella Moretti marries into the O’Riain family during World War Two and finds herself living on a sheep property on the barren edges of the Strzelecki Desert. Slowly her life unravels. Of course the Far West of NSW, specifically Corner Country, [...]

Frontier Australia

It was pretty tough being a settler in Australia in the 1830s and tougher still for the First Australians. Imagine you're a white settler and have just arrived in the colony of New South Wales after five months on-board a sailing ship en route from the Mother Country - England. On arrival you discover that [...]

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