G'day
Welcome to this blook. It's a cross between a blog and a book, and it's my attempt to tell the story of how we tried to save our cattle from drought on a small station in the Australian outback.
Australia is a big, beautiful, extraordinary country, but it's pretty dry, and there was a bad drought in Queensland when I was working there as a jackeroo. For the people and animals I worked with in the outback, drought was a matter of life and death, and finding a way to fight it was one of the most vivid, memorable and haunting experiences of my life.
I'll be updating this site with more of the story every week, and you can download and print chunks of it from the print section if you prefer.
I hope you enjoy it. If you do, please pass it on.
read more...click to Introduction
Dust storms...
You may have noticed during the past twelve months that the weather in Australia has made world news on a regular basis. You might have seen reports of hailstones as big as fists punching holes in cars in New South Wales, or houses whirled away in floods in Queensland. But more often the news is about drought.
It was drought that caused the forest fires that killed over two hundred people in Victoria earlier this year. And it was drought that caused the colossal dust storm that turned day into night in Sydney recently, blanketing the city in hundreds of tonnes of powdery topsoil blown east from the bone dry centre of the continent.
The Sydney dust storm was in fact just one of a series that have been blowing across Australia in recent weeks and months. Some of the dust has blown as far as New Zealand. If you'd like to read more about this in the Sydney Morning Herald, including their quotes from an expert called Dr Cattle, click here
I'll be updating this site with more of the story every week, and you can download and print chunks of it from the print section if you prefer.
I hope you enjoy it. If you do, please pass it on.
read more...click to Introduction
Dust storms...
You may have noticed during the past twelve months that the weather in Australia has made world news on a regular basis. You might have seen reports of hailstones as big as fists punching holes in cars in New South Wales, or houses whirled away in floods in Queensland. But more often the news is about drought.
It was drought that caused the forest fires that killed over two hundred people in Victoria earlier this year. And it was drought that caused the colossal dust storm that turned day into night in Sydney recently, blanketing the city in hundreds of tonnes of powdery topsoil blown east from the bone dry centre of the continent.
The Sydney dust storm was in fact just one of a series that have been blowing across Australia in recent weeks and months. Some of the dust has blown as far as New Zealand. If you'd like to read more about this in the Sydney Morning Herald, including their quotes from an expert called Dr Cattle, click here