Outback Story

When David Gordon described the Murray River as “the Nile of Australia” in his 1906 book of that name, he was truly prophetic. It was far from a time of plenty. Eastern Australia had just...

Eighty-year-old cocky George Clift’s roots extend deep into the black soils of the Liverpool Plains of central New South Wales. Seven generations of his family have worked the land on...

As Ashley Severin and Lyndee Matthews tour the fence line, they have a rifle wedged securely against the centre console of the four-wheel-drive. Like cool water, it’s a staple they never leave...

High up up along Cape York near Australia’s north-east tip, some 40 kilometres north of Cooktown where the Carroll Creek feeds into the Endeavour River, Esme Bowen from the Hopevale...

 Geoff Hinchliffe has never played competition cricket, but each summer for the past four years the  51-year-old has spent months preparing the pitch and outfield of the SCG. But...

  The British got onto a good thing when they loaded Asian water buffalo aboard tallships in Timor in the 1800s and sailed the trade winds south to Australia. They were on a mission to beat...

Life for Australia’s 4500 cane-growing farms is looking pretty sweet. For the first time in at least a decade, the world sugar price looks like it’ll generate decent returns for the...

  Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II regretfully declined an invitation from Diana Parsons to officially open the Hear the Bush Beat Festival in Condobolin, NSW, this September. “She sent...

Stuart Barden rarely stops moving between the two properties he and his wife Annie farm on the western plains of New South Wales. In this, one of Australia’s driest farming regions, life is a...

Jeff Odgers knows all about change. In 2001, just after the deregulation of the Australian dairy industry, the fourth-generation dairy farmer from Circular Head in north-west Tasmania sold the family...

Salty sweat continually streams into the eyes of fencer Andrew Lordan. He wipes it away with a clenched, gloved fist, swiping the flies at the same time. It’s hot and the water bottle is copping a...

Richard English is a grader driver. He is also a man with a surprisingly keen interest in tropical plants. While upgrading and widening the road to Lockhart River through the Cape York...

When Irishman Roderick O’Connor took up land near Avoca in Tasmania in 1830, Australia’s wool industry was in its infancy. But the native pastures of the emerald Fingal Valley were...

A hush descends around the campfire, so you can hear the individual fizz of intermittent raindrops as they plunge into the hot coals. Horse riders, clad in oilskins to keep out the rain and cold,...

Victoria's western Wimmera is a land of undulating plains and long, straight stretches of road punctuated by the shimmering, cigar-like shapes of wheat silos. Sandwiched between the sand and scrub of...

The pager on Neil Beer’s bedside table beeps loudly – it’s 3.49am. As the Country Fire Authority’s (CFA) Yea group officer reads the message, he is already on the way....

More than a century of farming heritage went under the hammer at an auction house in August, when the Landers family sold their 2284-hectare beef property on the Macleay River near Kempsey, in...

Queensland's Channel Country, as with much of Australia, has been deep in drought for the better part of five years. Although renowned for the quality of its cattle and its ability to turn-off fine...

The perfect saddle is the Holy Grail of horse riding. Just gather together any group of riders – stockmen, polo players, endurance riders, camp drafters, showjumpers or jockeys – and...

By late November last year the summer pastures of South Gippsland, in southern Victoria, had been depleted. Denied late winter rains and spring growth, the region’s dairy farmers were anxiously...

When US President George Bush delivered his State of the Union address in January, he wasn’t thinking about Australian farmers. But his plea to diversify the US’s energy supply could set...

When Bryan Connor was studying at the University of Glasgow’s prestigious medical school, he envisaged the years ahead as a suburban general practitioner (GP), treating coughs and colds,...

It is a challenge asking country people to talk about their relationships. Doubly so when the big dry is biting into much of the land, and their emotional and physical energy is focused on that....

To the naked eye, the Murray River is a beautiful sight as it meanders past Albury, on the New South Wales/Victoria border, through Australia’s richest irrigated farm belt. As with many things...

The Fitzroy River system is the best in the world,” declares Graeme Acton, head of Acton Super Beef, whose family cattle business is a dominant force in the region and the industry. “With...

It’s bump-out day at the show. It could be any show in any town anywhere in Australia, but it happens to be one of the biggest, the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Streets that, just the day before,...

If you want to understand the nature of a place built on hard work and isolation, you could do worse than spend a week on King Island. Caroline Kininmonth visited the island for a weekend 15 years...

Tom Murray sits in the cockpit of the family Cessna 172 and runs through his pre-flight checks in the late afternoon light. The Darling River is sliding along in the trees to his left, the tiny town...

When Kerry Packer died, just after Christmas 2005, hundreds of thousands of words spilled out from the world’s media. The Bulletin magazine published an entire 100-page edition about its late...

Ask Georgie Somerset about her life and the response is exhausting. There’s the management of an 800-breeder cattle operation she runs with husband Rob across five properties in the Durong area...