We are sitting at a table by the window. The street is deserted except for a group of black men standing at the entrance to the park, as if they are on duty, or perhaps are charging a fee for entrance to the park. They say things to people who go past, …

Dear Boris, You tell me you are living in Chirpan again, the town where you were born. That you have returned there after 35 years away. I still see Chirpan, low to the horizon and far to the west across the plain as we drove on our roundabout route …

I was a young stockman of 16 on a cattle station in the Central Highlands of Queensland in 1954 when the great flood occurred in the Fitzroy River catchment. The sky turned black–green and 12 inches of rain fell in the first hour. Before nightfall the …