I’ve just finished reading these two literary works. One set in Civil War era America and the other in post-WW2. I didn’t set out to read two books on war but these authors are among my fav’s. Varina by Charles Frazier "Civilization balances always on a keen and precarious point, a showman spinning a fine [...]
In 1845 George and James Hope arrived on the western edge of the Wimmera district of Victoria, near the town of Edenhope (established some years later) a scant thirty kilometres from the South Australian border. They chose the shores of a lake as part of their 48,000 ha selection, naming it Lake Wallace after William [...]
For a bushranger to be hanged but also dissected for scientific purposes in order to explore the possibility of abnormalities, you’d imagine some strange behavioural type or perhaps the very worst of crimes. Although the facts remain a little hazy, the truth gone with Alexander Pearce to his grave, there is little doubt that the [...]
I'm heading to Forbes on Thursday the 21st & Friday 22nd June 2018 for the Forbes Shire Council / Business Chambers 'Girl's Day Out' event. There's lots on: a cocktail party on the Thursday night and a luncheon at the Golf Club on Friday, plus a Friday morning shopping frenzy. If you're in the area grab some [...]
Often I come across a picture of a woolshed or an interesting story surrounding one and I can find only the smallest amount of information on the building or the history of the property where it is situated. Sometimes there are also differing names and dates, the history tumbled together so that time and place [...]
Irish born Captain Moonlight (Andrew Scott) might have trained as an engineer in London but he would eventually hold his dying lover in his arms thousands of nautical miles south in Australia. In 1861 his family moved to New Zealand with the hope of finding gold. The Maori Wars intervened and Scott enlisting as an [...]
A bushman with his dog and horse outside a humpy. This picture is thought to have been taken in the Hughenden district, QLD, around 1910-1920. By the looks of it it's made from canvas and branches and you can see cooking utensils near the entrance. A humpy (or gunyah) was traditionally used by Aboriginals as [...]
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, dogged by drought over the centuries. Partly criss-crossed [...]
In the early years of the 1860s a young wife abandoned her husband and with her son in tow went to live with a stockman named James Taylor. This woman’s leap towards a new life would probably have never been of interest were her husband not Ben Hall, who at the age of nineteen would [...]
You would imagine that with eight novels behind me I would slide into the writing of number nine with ease. Practice, an understanding of the fundamentals and an itching to get to know new characters should be enough to spur me on but this book has come slowly. Now nearly 80,000 words on and not [...]
