People

Roy Tyler's life revolves around horses. His home, near Mareeba in Far North Queensland, is a showcase of equestrian memorabilia with collections of saddles, riding boots and bridles. The walls are...

“Col Griffin – you were an old bloke when you taught me to fly in the ’80s!” Scott Thompson is surprised to bump into his elderly flying instructor closing up the hangar at...

Charlie Blake sits among a vast array of leather goods, from harnesses to plaited greenhide ropes, stirring his own recipe for leather dressing – a concoction of beeswax, mutton fat and...

 With only seven permanent residents in their town, the people of Innamincka, SA, have to be fairly self-sufficient. But one of them, Rhyna Nicholls, takes multi-skilling to a whole new level,...

  About the only thing John Cole hasn’t turned his hand to is candlestick-making. The former realtor, retail salesman, storeman, fitter-turner-machinist, sales rep, welder and tree...

Just off the track winding back to Gundagai, NSW, the “Nargoon” woolshed stands quietly, resounding with the ghostly echoes of bleating Merinos, the calls of shearers on the board and...

The handsome creamy mare in the roundyard fringed by stringybarks is wary, her ears back, her eyes watchful. She turns sharply in the soft dirt, darting left, then right, anything to avoid contact...

At 78, you’d reckon Johnny Murray would be ready to hang up his saddle and retire. Instead, he’s thinking about getting a new horse to train and is planning to take ‘Honey’,...

Beneath Brett Welsh’s stockman’s hat is an innocent, austere-looking face with two brilliant blue eyes. Remarkably, he is still rather pale. The relentless sunlight of the Gold Coast hasn’t...

Some doctors keep their nice cars for Sunday drives. Not Dr. George Kannourakis. But then the Greek-born former Harvard University researcher is not your average doctor.George drives his SL55...

It’s 2.30pm on a sultry Queensland afternoon and a few hundred spectators in the stands around Brisbane’s QE2 athletics stadium are cheering on young Olympic hopefuls and some of the...

Irrepressible and irreverent, Glenda Wootton is a force of nature whose small stature does nothing to disguise her larger-than-life character. She farms cattle on 43 hectares of rolling pasture near...

DANIEL WICKS was just six years old when he first saw whipcracking at the 1998 Tamworth Country Music Festival. As his parents Narelle and Steve Wicks recall, Daniel sat spellbound on the footpath...

“She lives for them bloody stock horses,” says Jack Ivery, the pride in his voice barely disguised by mock exasperation as he talks about his daughter Jackie Long. Jack understands what...

Vanessa Seekee pulls her cap tightly down upon her head, rearranges her long blonde ponytail, and surveys the glistening waters stretching out in front of her. From where she sits on the wharf at...

“Once its gone, it’s gone forever,” is how Richard “Digit” Briggs explains his interest in collecting things.  He lives only a few kilometres from Port Arthur, once...

Sitting tall in his saddle, Alwyn Torenbeek holds the reins in one hand, with his boots sitting slightly forward in his stirrups. He rides with the laconic ease that only outback horsemen display. At...

Between the sea and the scrub of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula, a subtle revolution in agriculture is underway. Port Broughton farmer Andrew Arbon calls himself “a crazy man out in...

With a deafening blast from its steam whistle, the PS Adelaide sets off, then the hypnotic sounds of hissing steam, clanking metal cogs and paddlewheels chopping through the water take over....

As the owners of Rubyvale Gem Gallery, located 60 kilometres west of Emerald, Queensland, on the world’s largest sapphire fields, Peter and Eileen Brown’s gems are in high demand...

The title brumby whisperer might not sit well with acclaimed horseman Digby Foster, but it accurately describes him and his ability to turn brumbies from Guy Fawkes River National Park, in NSW, into...

Michael Percy’s gaze takes in the country that stretches out in all directions from the yards he is checking. “It’s not too hard to muster this country now we’ve got...

If you look up Simpson and Day’s Field Guide to Birds of Australia, you will find the great northern bowerbird with a description that tells of the fantastic collection of colourful stones,...

Kevin ‘KJ’ Costello sounds the horn long and hard as he drives towards his first stop, Whynot Station, west of Quilpie, Queensland. He’s running late this week as rain has held him...