Up close

There's a buzz along the boards but it isn’t caused by the constant whir of electric motors that drive modern shearers’ blades and vibrate the dust out of the cracks between old timber....

Queensland is still wringing wet. A series of tropical cyclones in January and March delivered rejuvenating rain to 99 percent of the state. However, it’s the record flood event of late...

They aren't leftist Greenies or outspoken environmental activists. Rather than being driven by blind idealism, they simply want to manage their properties responsibly and sustainably, while...

Monique Rayment and Tommy Hoad are great mates. She runs the Jundah Pub, in central western Queensland, and he drinks there. Early last year, a couple of blokes pulled into the pub for a drink and...

  The fertile floodplains of the Reynolds River on Labelle Downs in the Northern Territory seem to glow in the soft September light. Feed is plentiful. Fat, contented cattle graze among a...

“If we didn’t have that main in, we’d be buggered by now. We would have had to sell all the stock.” Zane Austin, second -in-charge of the 4000-hectare beef and cropping farm...

Victorian cattleman Graham Forge didn’t think it was all that unusual when he saw a handsome little black brumby running with a couple of his stock horses early last year. One of his grazing...

Waterfalls cascading into the sea over mineral and time-stained rock outcrops, turquoise waters and white sands contrasting vividly with spectacular red cliffs – this is the Kimberley coast...

It’s a perfect spring day as Tony and Michelle McManus drive across bumpy dirt tracks towards the Darling River on sprawling Toorale station, south-west of Bourke, NSW. Their youngest son, Michael,...

The afternoon sky is dark grey, heavy with the imminent threat of rain. About 450 teenagers on horseback are called into the ring for the final time and it is obvious, even from a distance, that...

“Every child ought to be made to understand not only something of the world in which he lives, but something of the inheritance from the past to which he is born.” In a quiet cul-de-sac...

"Oh, I can't tell you that.” The stage whisper is delivered with a boyish grin. At 70 years of age, Barry Doonan is one of Australia’s leading bell-makers. He is one of the few men...

One truism agreed upon by horse breeders is that a talented horse is no accident and always comes from good stock. The same could be said of a good horseman.The Knight family name has become nothing...

A decade ago the district around Condamine, a tiny rural community on the banks of the Condamine River in Queensland, faced economic, social and cultural challenges. The young men in the area lacked...

Inside the shed a couple of old blokes – retired farmers, welders and shire workers – sit around a potbelly heater and warm their hard-working hands. They’re not the sort to dwell...

A major relaunch of the iconic Australia’s Stockman’s Hall of Fame (ASHOF) in 2008 will give Queensland’s Longreach a strong push towards snaring the title of ‘capital of the...

With a squeal of brakes the B-double comes to a halt and for a few quiet moments the flashing red lights softly illuminate the insignia on the truck bonnet. A sharp horn blasts and a freight train...

The Cockatoo Rodeo literally grew out of the ashes of the Ash Wednesday bushfires. On February 16, 1983, when 2,000 homes were destroyed and 42 Victorians died, 120 of the town’s children...

Tahlee Leeson smiles nervously as she grips the reins. The eight-year-old sits in a miniature-racing gig. It looks like a wheelchair that’s been converted into a chariot and the goat to which...

As the dust settles on the New England city of Tamworth after the annual shindig that is the Country Music Festival, new national champions across Australia are finding space to display their...