Bathurst, NSW: Construct a one-hundred-mile road in six months, proclaim a township, disrupt the indigenous population, discover gold and begin taming the land; such was the beginning of Australia’s oldest inland settlement. Building a path across the Blue Mountains presented a mighty challenge however in 1814, Governor Macquarie approved an offer by William Cox to build a road [...]
Orroral homestead - a snapshot of a fabulous old homestead: Stock stations in the Canberra district were established towards the end of 1824 and several years later pioneers settled in the mountain valleys west of the Murrumbidgee, beyond the limit of the 19 counties. William Herbert paid £10 for a pasturage licence in 1839 for [...]
The Magic Pudding is said to have been written to settle an argument. Norman Lindsay's friend Bertram Stevens said, that children like to read about fairies, while Lindsay asserted that they would rather read about food and fighting. Food and fighting clearly won for October 12 was declared 'Pudding Day' in 2008 in honor of [...]
F. Scott Fitzgerald the author of The Great Gatsby coined the phrase the ‘Jazz Age’ and was known as the Great American Dreamer. If you haven't read the novel you may well have seen the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. The Great Gatsby is the story of a mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his unrealistic obsession [...]
Elder & Co. brought the first ‘Afghans’ (Afghan cameleers) to South Australia to help traverse the desert terrain and long distances. Thirty-one Afghans arrived on the the ship 'The Blackwell' at Port Augusta and on New Year’s Eve 1865 the waiting crowd of onlookers watched the remarkable sight of 124 camels being lifted and deposited [...]
“Wilcannia, city of wind and dust, Queen of the western plains; Where man works for his daily crust, And it seldom ever rains.” (The Barrier Miner, Friday, November 3, 1939.) The Burke and Wills expedition is well known. Burke’s impatience on reaching Cooper’s Creek on November 11, 1860 and the unfolding disaster that transpired became [...]
It’s three years since I first started thinking about my new novel which I’m close to finishing. There’s been quite a few potholes to navigate along the way. Instead of my usual female protagonist I chose a male lead of Scottish descent and named him Ross Grant. Then I decided to track his life for [...]
The rise and fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) the magnificent eastern Roman city that endured for 1000 years must surely be one of history’s great stories. How Richard Fidler managed to break all those years into bite sized chunks and make it accessible is quite astounding. His young son forms part of the narrative following a [...]
When grazier Scobie Mackinnon married 1920s Hollywood silent screen actress, Claire Adams after meeting her in England following the Coronation of 1937 life at Mooramong homestead in Skipton Victoria was bound to change. Mooramong began its life under settler hands in 1838 when the squatting run was taken up by the Scottish immigrant Alexander Anderson [...]
Imagine owning pastoral lands equal to a third of the size of Belgium. James Tyson (1819-1898) was an Australian born, self-made ‘millionaire’ who owned a string of properties around Australia. His fame as a pastoral tycoon, immortalised by Banjo Paterson in the Poem T.Y.S.O.N. By the time Tyson finished acquiring pastoral leases along the Warrego River [...]
