Hop on your horse, let's go. And be warned: your bottom will be rubbed raw after just one a day in the saddle. And you could be heaving and swaying up there for several months.

I have some fascinating people to introduce you to. Like the late, legendary Bill Gwydir, who used to drove thousands of cattle thousands of kilometres, through the sweaty monsoonal mud of Queensland, then through the heat and cold and endless sand of South Australia. Bill's stories, of a childhood raised in the saddle, and of horses going blind in sandstorms, are riveting.

Then there's Aboriginal singer-songwriter Kev Carmody, who was also just a young boy when he first accompanied his parents. He recalls the hardships endured by his mother, then sings of it in 'Droving Woman'.

Another Aboriginal woman, a decade earlier, had an even harder life. Evelyn Crawford recounts this life with clarity and humour, in her book, 'Over My Tracks.'

This, and many other adventures await you, in 'Our Andy's Gone With Cattle', the story of the Drovers.

In this chapter:

The convict who tried a ‘fool’s gold’ trick – twice;

The real gold rushes and the birth of the swaggie;

The arrival of the Chinese goes off like fireworks, so here comes the White Australia Policy;

Grog and mayhem on the goldfields;

Duck for cover! It’s the bushrangers;

Defiance, death, and Justice – the Eureka Stockade;

… And to finish, a delightful interview I had with an old bloke who in the late 1890’s used to tramp up through the snow, past the gold mining camps, to the top of Australia’s highest peak carrying the mail.

Now Red Dust listeners, I have no interviews to present to you this episode. Rather, let’s head back in time, to before recording devices were invented.

Australia, as with the rest of the world, right now is in the midst of turmoil, over the significance of immigration. Our first Anoriginal immigrants trickled in while in the midst of the last Ice Age. But much, much later came a flood, of the second wave … ah ha! So here we go … In this episode …

The Great South Land is dumped with rubbish from Great Britain!

There’s ALSO space for some nice refined English people. (Free settlers).

There are Hangings.

Protests.

And we finish with a dramatic escape!

Music this issue comes from:

Warren Fahey's Australian Bush Orchestra: 'Pioneer Scottisch'

Warren Fahey: 'Jim Jones Of Botany Bay'

The Dingo And The Crow: 'Botany Bay'

Richard Glover, 'Moreton Bay'

40 Degrees South: 'The Catalpa'