For almost a century, drovers moved cattle along the Murranji Track, despite scarce water, jungle-like scrub and its reputation as the Death Track. In this well-researched, detailed book Lewis provides the definitive account of the track, from the time of the Aborigines and early explorers, to its opening by the legendary Bluey Buchanan.

Nat Buchanan was the first European to cross the Barkly Tablelands from east to west and first to take a large herd of breeding cattle from Queensland to the Top End of the Northern Territory. Buchanan created a droving record when he supervised 20,000 head over this route.

This is a true story. A Ringer's Hands is an account of the year I spent working on an outback cattle station in the middle of the Northern Territory. I left Sydney as a City Boy with a ute, a swag, a red dog and a craving for adventure, I came back a real Australian ringer.

Includes the Proceedings of the Royal geographical society, formerly pub. separately.

The frontiersmen who came to the Victoria River District of Australia’s Northern Territory included cattle and horse thieves, outlaws, capitalists, dreamers, drunks, madmen and others, from the explorers of the 1830s and 1850s to the founders of the big stations in the 1880s and 1890s, and the cattle duffers in the early 1900s. This book looks at them all. Drawing on painstaking research into obscure and rich documentary sources, Aboriginal oral traditions, and first-hand investigations conducted in the region over thirty-five years, Darrell Lewis pieces together the complex interactions between the environment, the powerful and warlike Aboriginal tribes and the settlers and their cattle, which produced what truly became A Wild History.

Twenty-eight Cattlemen tell their stories. If there is a life hereafter I imagine it to be something like this. There will be a big new saleyard in a lush green valley. Mick Moloney will have supplied the steel and supervised the construction. Luke Hopkins will be on the catwalk selling the cattle and Alan Bodman will be taking the bids. Wally Atkinson has drafted the cattle George Birch, Trevor Murray and myself will be leaning on the rails buying. Birchy will be buying for Cec Watts, I will be buying for Live Exports. Sid Parker and Tony Edwards will walk up behind me and tell me I am paying too bloody much for them. Bruce Paine will be on the job looking for cattle with diseases. Ian Knight will be off siding for him. Lyn Hayes and Ken Hammar will have worried looks on their faces because Jack Travers, Ian Michael and Peter McCracken the stock inspectors are checking brands and permits. Under a couple of shady trees not far away will be two droving plants. Bruce Simpson, Abe Teece and Bomber Stacey will be in one camp; George Fry, Bernie Jansen and Tiger Flohr will be in the other. Roger Steele will be horse tailing for both camps. Allan Simpson and Hank Sproules are knocking a few young horses into shape, out in the open. As the sun goes down John Gunn arrives in his road train looking for work. The drovers make a comment that road trains should never have been invented. Everyone calls it a day and heads for John and Wendy Ohlsen’s canteen to have a feed of rib-bones, have a few rums and reminisce about days gone by.

Historians have had little to say about the lands that stretch 'beyond the black stump'. These essays from around the country build inland Australia into our national history, crisscrossing both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors are Lorina Barker, Amanda Barry, Badger Bates, Peter Bishop, Nici Cumpston, Jean Duruz, Charles Fahey, Lionel Frost, Heather Goodall, Jenny Gregory, Patricia Grimshaw, Rodney Harrison, Rick Hosking, Darrell Lewis, Alan Mayne, Chrissiejoy Marshall, Margaret Somerville and Richard Waterhouse.

Trip from Katherine - Wave Hill, Victoria Downs, Gordon Downs, Fitzroy Crossing, Broome; Brief mention and pls. of Aborigines met on journey.

In a haunting romance set in Australia's far north in the middle of the twentieth century, Calum, a white ringer (cowboy), and Doreen, a mixed-descent girl, never once doubt their love even though, as a couple, they're disparaged by most whites. Calum joins a cattle drive after he's proven that he can handle both himself and the wild horse he is given to ride. >p>Enter Doreen, who has just been rescued by her mum from a mission school where she was treated badly by the Big Father. A chance encounter brings them together for the first time, but both of them believe their meeting was destined, regardless of what lies ahead for them. Through their experiences and those of the people around them, the racial discrimination that marked Australia's twentieth century the tragedy of Australia's Stolen Generation, the murder of Aborigines, and the abduction and rape of Aboriginal girls becomes the backdrop for this powerful love story. Long Creek offers an uplifting and beautiful romance and provides insight into the cattle-ranching life in a sparsely populated, beautiful, and unforgiving land.