Australian Rangelands in Contemporary Literature.

Abstract

The subject of this paper being contemporary Australian rangelands literature, I have restricted the study to literature of the decade to 1994, with focus on 1992-1994. I acknowledge recent informative studies, but have developed an individual perspective. In addition to considering recent novels and factual books I have given attention to newspaper and magazine accounts, as these give the most immediate observations of the rangelands, and attitudes towards them and their inhabitants. Key trends that emerge are perceptions of the rangelands as pristine - probably the one continuum since the commencement of written records about Australia; the entirely contrasting view of pastoralists as destroyers of rangelands; and recognition of Aboriginal spirituality as significant in caring for the land. The trends are not, however, entirely in the one direction, as I indicate by presenting both the positive and negative views presented by a select number of writers.

Experiencing Waterholes in an Arid Environment, with Particular Reference to the Lake Eyre Basin, Australia: a Review

“…In Stow's novels, and much other writing concerned with inland Australia, the landscape is characterised by a vastness and emptiness, with profound implications for the emotional and psychological states of the characters. In fact, the idea of escaping from the rangelands pervades many novels (examples include Cook, 1961; Kimber, 1994; Haynes, 1998). Amidst such a backdrop, the waterhole‐oasis figure offers the possibility of redemption, meaning and escape, however temporary; ‘a place of possibility embedded within the otherwise empty reality of the landscape’ (Lamb, 2007, 9).…”

“…However, it is those who have journeyed for a long period through harsh terrain who will most keenly feel the ‘oasis effect’. Here the mode of travel (Kimber, 1994) becomes important. It seems logical that a weary footsore wanderer would feel the blessed respite of a waterhole more powerfully than a member of a tour party who has been delivered to a promised ‘oasis’ in air‐conditioned comfort.…”

“…This ‘knowledge‐free appreciation’ sits in sharp contrast to the common experience of surrounding dunefields, shrublands, downs and stony plains. While to the ecologist, these vast and subtle landscapes represent veritable natural ‘wonderlands’ (Russell, 1931; Read, 2003), the traveller often finds much of the inland dreary, monotonous, lonely or downright forbidding (for example, Trollope, 1874; Kimber, 1994; Cathcart, 2009). However, the same traveller may be instantly charmed by a waterhole.…”