Hell, Highwater and Hardcases by Bruce Simpson

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Some minor marks on inside half-title page.

The pioneers of northern Australia who opened up the Queensland frontier in the late 1860s and those who followed across the Northern 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 km were common, opal gougers and fortunes and lost them; settlements mushroomed overnight only to disappear almost as quickly.

Against this hard 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. Hell, Highwater and Hard Cases brilliantly resuscitate a vanishing Australia. (back cover)