Ned Conroy, the craggy-browed Scotsman with the missing teeth and a dusty face the colour of the red earth he dug in, loved the bush, and the chase for floaters – those bits of gold on the surface – and then the dig-down search for the hidden reef.

And he wasn’t perturbed by the near-miss when, in the pitch black after his lamp snuffed out, several tons of earth collapsed right in front of him.

Or the time when a large snake tumbled down the mine shaft and landed on his shoulder.

When I visited them in 1970, Ned and his mate Banjo were two of the last three prospectors at Darlot, in Western Australia’s northern goldfields, where once there had been something like 5,000 people.

Ned was an alcoholic. He said working remotely in the bush suited him, keeping him on the task of the search for the yellow stuff, and away from the hotels.

Ned talks widely of the joys of life in isolation, the routine of a bushman, the challenges of surviving when you’re not finding much, and the beauty of a harsh landscape.

From the age of 12 Les Craigie was a professional boxer. In our interview he compared an easily bruised apple with the delicacy of a pummelled human brain. At 21 he’d had enough of the risks, and for the next 25 years he worked deep underground in the Broken Hill silver-lead mines – to face different but equally real dangers.

In 1948 Les climbed up out of the deep shafts and headed west, taking up his own silver-gold claim in the Barratta Ranges. From miner, he became a prospector.

Oh sure, that still meant picking and blasting his way beneath the surface, but with more time up top to gaze and to wander, taking in the beauty of the trees, the wildflowers, and to breathe unpolluted fresh air.

Twenty three years later, in 1970 when I interviewed him, Les Craigie was still his own man, content in the serenity.

Woops. Once again, we’re a long way from the usual Red Dust Tapes Outback territory.

This is the second of the two-part anecdotes of John ’Snow’ Williams, who first went to the Antarctic in 1958, at the end of the International Geophysical Year.

In this era the world was gripped with the fear of nuclear war, with the United States and Russia flinging threats at each other. So it was remarkable that a year of scientific co-operation was achieved, that had many significant, and shared, outcomes.

In this second episode, John talks of expeditions to count fleas on seals and Emperor penguins, one mechanical problem after another, escaping from crevasses, and a brief boozy encounter with the Russians.

Welcome to Season 2 of Red Dust Tapes.

We commence this second season as far as you can possibly get from the usual Red Dust Tapes territory, in The Land of the Blizzard, Antarctica.

It’s also just 67 years ago – so far more recent than most of my tales.

But John ’Snow’ Williams is a great storyteller. In this case recalling his time at Wilkes Station, in 1958, during the International Geophysical Year.

This was deep into the Cold War era, with the US and Russia trading frightening threats. But among other things, John talks of convivial encounters with the Russians.

John's early days in the Deep South were also filled with high drama.

THIS IS THE FINAL EPISODE OF SEASON 1.

Whoah! It seems I achieved something that the great television interviewer and self-confessed cricket nut Sir Michael Parkinson longed for, but never managed – to not just meet, but to interview the legendary, world-beating cricketer, Sir Donald Bradman.

It was said that Don Bradman was ‘elusive’. Like a lyrebird in the bush, perhaps? But there was the great Don, graciously opening his office door to me, welcoming me in, and cheerfully sharing so many stories from his illustrious sporting life.

This was in about 1972, when Sir Donald was a stockbroker batting share prices rather than a cricket ball, having played his final Test game against England 24 years earlier. In that match the great man was just four runs short of a 7,000-run career, but was sent walking with a duck.

With a what?

In this episode of Red Dust Tapes I offer a brief introduction to this weirdest of games, that in it’s ‘first class’ form can keep going for six hours a day for three, four, and in present times, five days.

But we’re really here for the anecdotes and musings of the man many regard not just as the greatest cricketer of all time, but possibly the greatest sportsperson.

Sir Donald was a delight to sit with, freely sharing on career highlights, the lows of the dangerous bodyline era, and tales of other legendary cricket characters.

So no, this edition of Red Dust Tapes is not about the Outback. And yes, it is all about cricket. But offered to you in a way that I hope you will enjoy regardless of your interest in sport.

By the way it’s also the end of the first season of Red Dust Tapes. I guarantee you’ll be delighted with the content and variety of the next season, when we spend time with cattlemen, railway workers, isolated Aboriginal people, prospectors, paddlesteamer captains; when we hear more anecdotes from our first airmen, and meet assorted Outback loners.

All of these characters were born towards the end of the 19th century or early in the 20th, so all are long, long gone.

My interviews are Australian oral history you won’t hear anywhere else.

To stay informed, and to be alerted when the new season starts, please subscribe, at www.reddusttapes.au

SEASON 1, EPISODE 11

When I interviewed Ernest Skein in 1970, I was told he had recently been let out of jail.

I didn’t want to close down an interview with a fascinating old-time prospector, so when I got the message that some subjects were not to be touched, I left that one alone. It remained just a giant elephant in the tiny, hot-as-hell tin shack in which I interviewed him in Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory.

What I’ve found out recently deepens the mystery of Ernest Skein. It involves a shocking incident that occurred at the Dolly Pot Mine in Tennant Creek, way back in 1939.

I relate what little I know of this incident at the end of this edition of Red Dust Tapes. But for the most part, this is the story of a north Queensland butcher who got his start selling cat meat, and ended up as a gold miner in the Northern Territory, with a whole lot of rough and tumble along the way.

SEASON 1, EPISODE 10

In the Depression years Fred Teague had been a gold miner and fox shooter north of the road to Broken Hill. He drove trucks for the legendary Harry Ding to Innaminka, and up the Birdsville Track, in gruelling conditions, where if you got stranded you’d better have plenty of water; and where a wrong turn could mean the end.

Then in the early 1950s he opened Hawker Motors, which became a mecca for motorists heading up into the Flinders Ranges and beyond.

What made Fred Teague so special though, was his encyclopaedic knowledge of the natural and human history of the Flinders.

Fred’s formal education had been limited, but over the years he gathered a comprehensive book collection. It was from the Bush though, that he learned most – through experience, intense observation, and through association with people like Aboriginal elders, and visiting geologists and paleontologists.

I interviewed Fred at his Hawker Garage in 1967. My interview at that time focussed on the Flinders, not the man. So I was grateful, in early 2024, to learn Fred’s fascinating personal story, from his son John Teague.

This episode features both father and son, interviewed 57 years apart.

SEASON 1, EPISODE 9

It was bitterly cold up there, in leather cap and goggles, in the open cockpit. Turbulence in North Queensland skies was often terrifying. Passengers could do nothing but hang on and bear it, hopefully holding something to catch the vomit.

And on landing, ‘sometimes the only edifice on the aerodrome was a little tin shed’, Sir Hudson told me. ‘On a cold morning you’d see the poor passengers making a sprint for this little tin shed.’

Sir Hudson Fysh was co-founder of the Australian flagship airline, Qantas. I interviewed him in 1970. This was a year before the first 747 Jumbo took to our skies, and three years before Concorde first flew.

We spoke to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his scrappy little airline that started in the red dust of inland Queensland not long after World War One, and quickly grew to take on the world.

Sir Hudson was a natural storyteller. He shared insights into the rugged flying conditions for passengers and pilots alike; the emotions of those early passengers who in many ways were like guinea pigs; and the lows and highs of running an airline between the world wars – including the romance of the flying boats – and on into the jet age.