Gundagai to Rockhampton, and points in between.

Photo of Mutawintji National Park by Beppie K used under a Creative Commons license.

Jack Hodgins, Over 40 in Broken Hill (McClelland & Stewart, 1992).
A travelogue by Hodgins, a Canadian novelist, who took a road trip with Australian writer Roger McDonald. The two planned to drive in McDonald’s one-ton truck through the outback of New South Wales and Queensland, initially to do some research on sheep shearers for a book McDonald was writing (which turned out to be Shearers’ Motel), and then to visit McDonald’s brother on a cattle ranch and lastly to do some camping. In the event, record rains and floods interfered. I picked up this book because I love Shearers’ Motel, and hoped Hodgins would shed more light on that book, but he skipped most of McDonald’s interviews with shearers. Instead, he gives the sort of perspective on the small towns between the long stretches of bitumen in the interior of these two provinces that it takes a foreigner to provide.

Here is biographical information on Hodgins. Wayne Grady wrote this review. Here is more about others of Hodgins’ books. And here is his website.

Buy it through Amazon.com.