The pioneers of northern Australia who opened up the Queensland frontier in the late 1860s, and those who followed across the Territory and into the Kimberleys and the West Australian goldfields were hard cases - they had to be.
Rushing, swollen rivers and an inhospitable, arid inland exacted a severe toll on both man and beast. Droving feats of 1600 kilometres were common, opal gougers made fortunes and lost them, settlements mushroomed overnight only to disappear almost as quickly.
Against this harsh backdrop, packhorse drover Bruce Simpson fascinates with first-hand accounts of camp cooks, buckjump show roughriders, officious union officials, and wonderful laconic, witty characters, many of whom were arguably among the world's leading horsemen. This book brilliantly resuscitates a vanishing Australia.
Contains black and white photographs.
