Peopled by many of the legends of the Australian outback, this is the extraordinary true story of how one ordinary woman grew up to champion Australia's outback heritage.Jane Grieve was born and raised on a farm on the Darling Downs in Queensland. She grew up with the wind in her hair and the rich black Darling Downs soil between her barefoot toes, her vivid imagination captivated by the tales of her Colonial forebears and the romantic notion of Australia's outback...

He was a pioneer trucker in postwar Australia - a time when outback roads were little more than corrugated dirt goat tracks. This is a story of vast distances, ill-equipped machines, heat and dust, humour and mateship.'If you had worked with them, if you had driven with them, if you had had a drink with them, if you helped them when broken down, you would have been proud to be one of them and called them mates.'Meet Ray Gilleland, pioneer trucker in postwar...

From choirboy to cowboy . . .In 1967, fresh from boarding school humiliations, and having lost his father to alcoholism, gangly teen Michael Thornton was packed off to a tough sheep and cattle station to work as a jackaroo. He was to learn the wool trade from the lamb up, under a boss legendary for working his farmhands in an almost military regimen.Tasked with the dirty, disgusting and downright dangerous jobs, jackaroos are the dogsbodies of our farms. But ...

Sheryl McCorry is a woman in a million. In her bestselling memoir Diamonds and Dust and its follow up Stars over Shiralee, Sheryl shared her amazing life story from a childhood in the Top End to mustering cattle in the outback to becoming the first woman in the Kimberley to run two million-acre cattle stations.In Love on Forrest Downs, Sheryl's inspiring story continues as she and her soulmate Michael bat...

Sheryl McCorry's memoir Diamonds and Dust was a runaway bestseller in 2007. Now, in Stars over Shiralee, Sheryl brings her story up to date, picking up from the death of her husband Bob McCorry.Having moved from the Kimberley to a property called the Shiralee, Sheryl is rocked by the death of her ex-husband. While continuing to run the Shiralee, Sheryl at first leans on her parents and her children for comfort. But soon, ...

Five kids orphaned by a terrible accident . . .A struggling family living in the most isolated spot on earth . . .A single dad battling to cope in a house falling down around his ears . . .A desperately ill woman in the middle of nowhere . . .In the great Outback traditions of mateship, resilience and generosity come these stories of ordinary people who, against seemingly insurmountable odds, help out those who inhabit Austra...

The work of a nurse is challenging enough, but when you add a remote location, the stakes are so much higher. Meet fifteen courageous people who prove that the outback runs on nurse power.There's Anna, who is on duty as the fury of Cyclone Yasi tears through inland Queensland; Maureen in outback New South Wales, who faces everything from a snakebite to a helicopter crash; Aggie, who overcomes her demons to help young people in the Kimberley; and Catherine, newly graduated and determ...

'The Outback isn't a place on a map; it's a place in your heart. It's an attitude, how you treat people, a way of behaving. It's your belief system, and how a whole nation of Australians often long for a time when life was simpler, less complicated, more genuine . . . 'Sue Williams has long been fascinated by the Outback – its striking landscapes, the salt-of-the-earth characters it breeds, its wonders and its weirdness. But to date, her focus has been on others' l...

Peter Moore left the city behind in 1952 to become part of a dying breed - a long-distance drover. In My Droving Days we follow his progress through the 1950s as he rubs shoulders with the larger-than-life characters - and their dogs and horses - who trekked along the outback stock routes of western Queensland and New South Wales.Meet the world's worst cattle dog and the station hand, Charlie, who blows an outside toilet (and its contents) sky high; thrill to the high dram...

In the tradition of Mailman of the Birdsville Track, The Man from Coolibah details the life of outback cattle property owner, helicopter muster operator and knockabout bloke Milton Jones.The youngest in a family of five, Milton Jones grew up on large properties in the outback. His father was a farm manager and so his early life was a world away from that of city kids. Milton left school in Queensland in his mid teens and moved back to the Northern Territor...

'From the helicopter I could see the property's waterholes surrounded by paperback trees, its red-stone cliffs lit by the rising sun. And grass, endless seas of grass. Here was the vision splendid: Nat Buchanan's grass castle. Gurindji country. And my country, Australia.'This is big country, the outback, home to the largest cattle and sheep stations in the world. Yet few of us know what goes on behind the farm gate. What's life really like when next door is 500 kilometres away, and ...

Fiona Johnson was born a city girl. But she was always drawn to horses. Aged 10 she saved all of her pocket money to buy a saddle at a garage sale. Eventually, after months of nagging her parents, she persuaded them to buy her a horse to go with the saddle. And so began a life-long love affair with horses and Rodeo.Fiona eventually moved from city to country when she met the love of her life Matt. Sadly tragedy struck shortly after they were married. Fiona was diagnosed with Leukae...