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In the years we lived in Bourke, we often heard warm praise from the locals for the Bush Brothers. They were an Anglican order, begun around 1900, which mobilised young men from Oxford University to tackle the tyranny of distance in the Outback. The first Australian recruit, 21 year old John Dent Martyn, caught my attention with his enthusiasm. Here is a snatch from his diary. “The old Lizzie in which I have to travel is quite a specimen for the Museum. It is six years old, has done 76,000 miles, has been up two trees, has torpedoed one cow, has had the chassis snapped, has been bogged, I might say, hundreds of times! I have just got in tonight from a 150 mile trip. That is the shortest trip I have to do…Who wouldn’t be a Bush Brother? This district is half the size of England and just as large as the whole of Victoria." LISTEN as Paul tells more of Brother John's story. 
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 Aunty Pat Doolan is one of those rare people you meet in life who radiate goodness. As a result she’s been a game-changer wherever she’s lived. You can’t help being touched by her rare blend of determination and kindness - that’s how she’s got things done. She leads by being a servant and she never wavers in declaring her faith in public.
Bruce Feiler, a man who took a recent pilgrimage across the Middle East in the steps of Abraham, said the big thing that happened to him on his quest was that ‘my learning went from my head to my feet...the big transformation was being on the land...and finding the story in the geography itself.’ That’s precisely what was happening to READ MORE..  The pilgrimage took on the nature of a sentimental journey today. Actually, it started the night before when Colin Buchanan took time to talk to Russell and Robert’s grandchildren live on their phones. Distance shrank and two grandfathers shed tears of joy - the ink READ MORE...  Out past the old North Bourke Bridge Jen Greentree’s gallery opened the eyes of our pilgrims to the moods and colours of the Outback. She paints stories of hope in ochres and blues, to defy the thinking that this is God-forsaken country. Later in the day they saw READ MORE...  2WEB's Chris Dover talks to the Outback Historian, Paul Roe about the Collin Buchanan concert in Bourke.  Join The Outback Historian and Colin Buchanan at the Back 'O Bourke Information and Exhibition Centre for an amazing concert under the stars for the official launch of Paul Roe as The Outback Historian.  The wide red country round Bourke on the Darling is Paul’s patch and even though he’s explored it for forty years or more, it still surprises him. That’s mostly because it’s story-rich. And it’s not just local yarns either – there are stories there that will knock your socks off. Explorers, poets, bushrangers, cameleers, riverboat captains, and a host of plain folk are ready to tell us extraordinary things about our own country that we would never have realised. Join Paul as he takes a group of travellers on a journey of a lifetime in their own backyard. #D2B2020  Freddie Campion was a member of the Governor’s staff, the NSW golf champion of 1895 and an athletic horseman who loved to shoot. The neglect of the spiritual health of the Western people haunted him; he returned to England to train for the ministry. February 1902 saw him disembarking from the SS RUNIC in Sydney with two other passionate young Anglican missionaries, Charles Matthews and Reuben Coverdale. They were bound for Dubbo as the nucleus of a unique band of men who were to become known across the Western plains over the next century simply as ‘the Bush Brothers’. Click READ MORE  |
AuthorJoin The Outback Historian, Paul Roe, on an unforgettable journey into Australia's Past as he follows the footprints of the Master Storyteller and uncovers unknown treasures of the nation. Archives
May 2025
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