Barefoot in the Bindis

Book excerpt: A circle of pine trees, a sagging wire fence, and a roof that was once painted red. ‘There it is,’ said Dad. In 1953, after doctors prescribed fresh country air for his health, Scottish-born Robert Wales uprooted his young family from the city life of Sydney and set out to establish a sheep farm in the bush. What he lacked in experience and expertise, he made up for in enthusiasm. Or so he hoped. When the family arrived on a lonely hill in northern New South Wales, they had no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no choice but to make that tangle of bush their home. From Angela Wales, eldest of the five kids, comes this extraordinarily vivid and evocative account of the next ten years as they tried to tame six thousand acres and navigate the challenges of country life. Filled with drama and hilarity, joy and back-breaking toil, Barefoot in the Bindis portrays a childhood spent in the bush, and is a sensational picture of Australia past.