"I have always been an optimistic person. There have been many big challenges in my life but I've always met them head on. That's the way I was raised by my father for better or worse. I had worked for almost my entire life of 39 years on our family property in the Northern Territory.
I had invested everything on a practical and emotional level into Bullo and it was always understood between me and my mother that the property was part of our future. I would never leave the property and I didn't think she would either. I would raise my family there and in time it would pass to my children.
Now my whole life as I'd known it seemed to be at an end . . . But, I knew what I had to do. I would give it my best shot. If I had to fight for Bullo I would. I would do everything I could to save the land I loved."
The Henderson family of Bullo River Station in the Northern Territory has been immortalised in a series of best-selling books - three by mother Sara and one by middle daughter, Bonnie. And now it is time for the eldest daughter, Marlee Ranacher to break her silence and give her side of the story.
Life on Bullo has always been a bit of a battle, not just against the hardships of the bush but between family members. This book reveals the spectacular and bitter fallings out within the Henderson family starting with Charles Henderson, a ruthless and autocratic patriarch who virtually conducted a social experiment on his family, moving to the estrangement between sisters Marlee and Bonnie, and culminating in the recent acrimonious and protracted court battle with mother Sara over the future of Bullo River Station.
Marlee was the dutiful daughter who long enjoyed a close relationship with her mother. She was the one who nominated Sara for The Businesswoman of the Year Award - the catalyst for Sara's successful writing career. However, the relationship between mother and daughter soured when Sara made the shock decision to sell the property. As a result, Marlee took on her mother in the biggest battle of her life to date: the battle for Bullo.
