Horizons

Long-awaited rain has descended on sheep and wheat communities in the southern parts of South Australia and for Felicity Brown, a commercial pilot and co-owner of Chinta Tours, the downpour is both a...

A Canadian and an Australian who both have a love of farming and travel have put their expertise together to create an agricultural-recruitment business in both countries. Cascade Recruitment (the...

Travellers heading west on Queensland’s Warrego Highway across the plains from Chinchilla pass through small towns dominated by huge wheat silos. Clustered around the road crossings and the...

Fred “Tommy” Thompson, bundled up against the morning chill, took aim, kicked the rear wheel and dislodged a dusty, yellow clod. There were only a few of Yuleba’s 300 residents up...

 Dawn breaks gently over the desert landscape south of Alice Springs, its sunlight finding Charlie Forbes and Wayne Brady already on their feet preparing for a task they’ve travelled 1300...

Banjo Paterson wasn’t impressed all those years ago when he turned his attention to the seemingly never-ending plains that surround Hay in the western Riverina of New South Wales. He wrote...

From the moment he arrived at Galiwin’ku on Elcho Island, in north-east Arnhem Land, Michael Martin was right at home. “I felt so welcome and straight away I clicked with the Yolngu...

Robert Groth is a drover. Hugh Possingham and Henry Nix are professors. Cecile van der Burgh is a Wilderness Society campaigner. John Williamson is a well-known country-music singer. Allan Scammell...

Liam Cox revs the engine to break free from the 50-centimetre-deep mud that has bogged the bright orange digger beneath a Tasmanian sky of black and grey. His mates cheer as the little machine jolts...

As sunset colours the airstrip – open again now for traffic – members of the Harden Kite Festival committee take some time to relax and reflect on the day that’s been. There’s no doubt it was...

Camel racer and sapphire miner John Richardson has a jewel in his front teeth and a twinkle in his eye as he describes the strategy behind winning the $14,000 first prize in the inaugural Sheikh...

You'll forgive us here at R.M.Williams OUTBACK for being a little nostalgic as we scramble around the country collecting yarns and photographs for another edition of our magazine. As this 61st issue...

These days you can’t travel the length of the Nullarbor’s Trans Access Road unless you’re on a train. Since the railway was privatised, public access from the west finishes at...

"Can we please have money towards a semen tank, Grandma?” requested Nicole and Tania Hartwig, after they were asked what they wanted for their 13th and 16th birthdays. Not your average...

Lorraine Thomas is busy in her gem shop. Today, there are quite a few visitors, which isn’t always the case. They buy some jewellery fashioned from an impressive range of local stones –...

Of the 15 men whose names were drawn in the Kilcummin land ballot on October 8, 1957, not one could have anticipated the scale of the legacy they would create for those to follow. After laying the...

THREE tiger sharks keep circling the boat, each an impressive three metres long. On board four wheelie bins are crammed with the previous day’s scraps and leftovers from the filleting of...

When Swedish excavator driver Frederick Palsson heard he was going to Australia, he was delighted. “ When I saw I had the heavy machinery job I knew I hit the jackpot, “ he says, with a...

In yards and paddocks all around Australia, thousands of volunteers check their rain gauges at 9am every day, recording their findings on a sheet of paper. At the end of every month, all these sheets...

Jeff Moon enjoys the view from the verandah of his house on a small acreage in St George, southern Queensland. He looks out at the green lawn and lush gardens as his wife, Pam, provides some country...

It was hailed as visionary, audacious, and a once-in-a-generation chance at the largest modernisation of irrigation infrastructure ever undertaken in Australia’s history. But Prime Minister...

‘Beyond the black stump’ is one of the most Australian of all Australian sayings. Although generally considered to be some place far, far away, there are variations in the specific...

You know it’s pretty cold when you have to give the billy a tap to get the lid off in the morning. Just after sunrise, the thermometer registers minus 7.9 degrees Celsius. In 1876, explorer...

The thunder of hooves and the clatter of sticks resounds across the home paddock of Calrossie Station, 70 kilometres west of Eidsvold, Queensland, as the formidable Hartwig family and team-mates...

The Bulls Run general manager Andrew King first started working in a shearing shed at the age of 12 on his family’s property at Mount Gambier, SA. In the 40 years since, he has seen what works...

Kylie Harris and Julie Marshall spend a lot of time in their lounge room – but little time at home. This is because their so-called lounge room is the Nissan Patrol they use to travel over vast...

For seven months of every year, Sandra Schleter lives in a crude tin shed on a patch of the Northern Territory’s Leila Creek Station near the Gulf of Carpentaria. She has no TV or radio, and...

Dusk settles quickly over the land as the tropical night closes in on Wongalara Station, in the Northern Territory’s Top End. Looking north, towards Arnhem Land, lightning flickers in the high...

Australians identify closely with the features and values that characterise rural and remote Australia. The frontiers of the country have provided us with not only a strong economic base, but also...