These and other true stories of courage and ingenuity remind us how the Australian character was forged - through encounters with the bush, desert and outback. The vision that appeared in the shooter’s lamplight was a shock - a man soaking wet, with torn clothing, covered in cuts, bruises and blood. ‘I’ve found that missing aeroplane,’ O’Reilly gasped, ‘and there are two men still alive.’ The men and women you’ll meet in this fascinating audiobook come in all shapes and sizes, from convicts and engineers to cattleduffers and anthropologists.

This book is an inspiring tribute to the remarkable life of Sir Sidney Kidman - the Cattle King. At the age of 13 Sidney Kidman ran away from home with only five shillings in his pocket. He went on to become a horse dealer, drover, cattle buyer and bush jockey and he also ran a coach business.

Birdsville is one of the most remote police postings in Australia. It can be lonely and uneventful for weeks, then the dramas come thick and fast: from desert rescues to rising floods, venomous vipers to visiting VIPs. Throw in heat, dust and flies and it's not a job for the faint-hearted, unless you're Senior Constable Neale McShane, who has single-handedly taken care of a beat the size of Victoria for the past 10 years. Recently retired, Neale and his family thrived on the adventures and colourful times.

The Birdsville Track is one of the best-known - and loneliest – tracks in Australia, and for 20 years Tom Kruse was the mailman, battling the searing heat, floods, and mechanical breakdowns. He made the run every fortnight, and was a lifeline to the isolated settlements and stations along the way, delivering everything from letters to essential supplies. The Track is still just that - a track through the desert and sandhills. Tom began in the days before reliable vehicles, good communication, and air access in case of emergency. He made running repairs of his truck, he loaded and unloaded tons of stores to ferry his cargo across flooded creeks.

The trucker's job - so vital to our nation's everyday life - makes for a diverse treasure trove of stories. This first-ever collection of stories about Aussie truckers captures the humour, tragedy, and fascinating history of their world, proving once again that truth is often stranger, funnier, and more inspiring than fiction. The unlikely yarns and tales, collected by Jim Haynes, quickly transport the listener into the intriguing but often hard and lonely world of the long-distance truck driver.

"'Cattle Kings' ye call us, then we are Kings in grass castles that may be blown away upon a puff of wind..." - Patrick Durack, 1878. When Patrick Durack left Ireland for Australia in 1853, he was to found a dynasty of pioneers, and build an empire of cattle-land across the great stretches of Australia. His grand-daughter, Mary Durack, with a profound sense of family history, has rebuilt the saga of the Duracks, a saga that is the story of Australia itself, huge, pioneering, and tremendous in concept.

Yarns and memories that capture the experience of driving Australia’s outback roads, gathered by the inimitable Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh. Whether they’re carting produce, stock, fuel or even (unbeknown to them) dead bodies, there’s one thing that can be said about outback truckies - they’re a colourful bunch. Meet the outback truckies who brave interminable distances, searing heat, raging floodwaters and foot-deep bulldust to transport goods and livestock all across this vast land, serving as lifelines not just to those in the bush but to those in cities as well.

For much of its history Australia has been described as riding on the sheep's back...but if the country rode on anyone's back, it was on the aching, creaking, flexing spines of Australian shearers. Armed with their blades, a sense of adventure and a relentless work ethic, shearers have been a fundamental part of Australia's outback for centuries.

The Australian classic Kings in Grass Castles was the saga of the first generation of the pioneering Durack family, beginning their story from 1853. But the second generation of the Durack men were not only hardy pioneers, used to droving cattle thousands of miles through the grandeur of north-west Australia - they were also educated, travelled men, at home in the worlds of commerce and politics.

Yearning for what they’d left behind and disillusioned by city living, Jack Ferguson and Harry Turner leave Perth to return to the rough opal-mining environment of Coober Pedy, on the edge of the Stuart Ranges in South Australia. They discover, however, that all is not as idyllic as they remembered. They face harsh conditions, personal trials and a lack of funds. But determination, hard work and a little luck see them begin to establish themselves....

Author Deb Hunt sets out to discover what makes our Australian farming families tick. Travelling to properties across the country - from a vast, dusty cattle run in outback Queensland to the wheat belt of Western Australia and dairy farms in Tasmania - and introducing us to eight different families who survive and thrive on the land, these stories provide a window into a way of life that defines the Australian spirit at its best.

A great Australian yarn about a bold Australian outback adventure belonging to another time in another world, inspired by a true story. The happy routine life of two Perth boys is shattered one November day in 1950 when they are falsely accused of theft. With fabricated evidence mounting against them they decide to run away from their homes and families to avoid prosecution and pooling their meager pocket money they back the winner of the Melbourne Cup and fund an escape.

The Best Australian Yarns is a substantial and definitive work collected from memory, mates, word of mouth and decades of researching popular Aussie culture and history.

Including oft-told legendary yarns, reminiscences from the shearing shed, tall stories from the bush, sporting yarns, railway yarns, stories from the world of show business, digger yarns from both world wars, convict and bushranger yarns and anecdotes from the colonial days, yarns from shanties and gold rushes, ghost stories, bunyips and yowies, hauntings, and weird happenings.

Third-generation farmer Adam Burton has always tried to keep his family together, but 20 years after his little sister went missing from the family farm, he's losing hope. His dad has walked out, his mum is as reclusive as ever, and he still blames himself for his sister's disappearance. When Stella Reynolds and her young daughter arrive from the big smoke to stay at the holiday cottage on their farm for the summer, Adam is immediately attracted to the beautiful single mom. 

I tell you, you meet some strange characters in this game.... Boasting the biggest beats in the world - some as large as France - Australia's outback police have seen it all: natural disasters, incredible acts of selflessness, unspeakable crimes and daring rescues, just to name a few. And they've met some unforgettable characters along the way: from the murderer who stuffed his victims' bodies down wombat holes to the policeman who arrested his own wife....