Synopsis:
ADVENTURES DOWN UNDER as a young expatriate from Texas, motivated by the impending sale of the family ranch, leaves the security of home and family to make a new life for himself in the Australian outback.
Taken under the wings of some of the most outrageous characters in the Northern Territory (making “Crocodile Dundee” look like an effete buffoon by comparison), the author pursues the dangerous profession of bull catching, capturing wild bulls and water buffalos on the open range, not unlike Texas immediately after the Civil War, only the author, in bare feet and worn out cutoffs, uses Toyotas instead of horses and throws them down by the tail instead of roping them.
A one of a kind adventure set in the wildest and most remote areas of the continent. Spiced with danger, colorful characters, humor, and a deep empathy for the outback and for Australia’s indigenous people as the author’s quest ultimately ends with a poignant twist.
Excerpt:
I was rudely awakened at 2am when I realized I had four inches of water flowing through my sleeping bag. It was too cold to get up so we slept in the water until 5am. Then we made a fire in the rain and built a lean-to against a fallen tree. We shivered, naked and cold, feeding the fire until our clothes were dry, and then we dried out our sleeping bags and rebuilt our tent site with a drainage diversion to keep the water from pouring into our tent.
It rained steadily for four days with the rain coming down in cycles. We were hoping the river would rise so we could make the rest of the trip in the raft, and I blazed a notch on a tree by the water's edge so we could tell how much the river had risen.
That night at the campfire we sat up, startled, as we heard the death throes of a giant swamp gum crashing in the distance because of the wind and the rain and the rot that comes from never being dry. We heard it creaking with the strain and then the roots pulled and twisted until they snapped. After the roots gave way we heard the branches splinter and crack as the great tree fell, and the echo of earth-shaking thunder died as quickly as the first giving way had begun.
"This is real tiger country, mate," said Dave in an awe-struck voice as he stared out into the darkness with widened eyes.
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