Nullarbor Lifelines by Basil Fuller

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges, particularly at tail edge. Some faint foxing marks on foredges. Dust jacket has wear to corners and is now enclosed in a glossy protective cover. Interior and binding are still very good.

Basil Fuller blends his observations of the modern road and rail links with the history of the Nullarbor as told to him by men who remember the days of camel trains. He writes of people who have learnt how to survive on the homesteads and railway sidings of Australian outposts.

“The ‘Tea and Sugar’, which is the name given to the supply train that carries the necessities and minor luxuries of life to the tiny townships along the Trans-Australian Railway, is a part of Australian folklore. Most people have heard of it: few know anything about it. Basil Fuller decided to find out for himself and took a ‘Tea and Sugar’ trip across the Nullarbor. This project developed into an exploration of the two routes linking eastern and western Australia across the vast, arid Nullarbor Plain: the railway and the Eyre Highway. They are lifelines not only for Australia but especially for people living on the Nullarbor.

The author travelled west aboard the Tea and Sugar and returned by roughing it on one of the road trains that supply dwellers along the highway. Out of a land of bull oak, salt bush and bluebush, he has drawn many human-interest stories from the people of the Nullabor. His talks with old-timers about the early days of the Nullarbor and the hardships they endured are interwoven with his study of how people live along the two lifelines nowadays.

A fascinating account of the construction of the Nullarbor Highway in the 1970s.