Robertonfrayfeed

When most Australians crack open a macadamia and taste that creamy, sweet kernel inside a shell hard enough to blunt a hammer, few stop to think about how old this nut really is. Long before farmers worked the Wide Bay or northern New South Wales, and well before Europeans set foot in the southern hemisph...

This will be seen as one of the great books about Australia. Eric Rolls gives the history of the forest the laconic power of an extended campfire yarn, spiced with the personal vision that comes from a lifetime of acute observation.

Historian Professor Weston Bate, on A Million Wild Acres.

In the early years of the Second World War, long before the crackle of a radar echo became familiar to Australian ears, the remote headlands scattered around the continent’s coastline were quiet, almost forgotten places. They were the domain of lighthouse keepers and fishermen. But by 1942, the steady mar...