The Bushman's Dog and Other Ballads from the Goldfields

The Bushman's Dog and Other Ballads from the Goldfields

Dig deep enough into Australian soil, and you won't just find gold, you'll find ghosts, laughter, heartbreak, and a loyal dog waiting by the campfire.

Peter Hepenstall's collection of poems and ballads is a love letter to the goldfields and the wild country beyond them, Ballarat, Bendigo, Castlemaine, Maldon, Daylesford, Chewton, Ararat, where every dusty track and quiet riverbank holds a story worth telling. This is Australia as it was lived: rough, funny, tender, and unforgettable.

Here, the Bushman's Dog trots faithfully at your heel, and Clancy the sheepdog isn't far behind. Wombats, kookaburras, emus, echidnas, brumbies, cockatoos and the legendarily stubborn blue-arsed fly all make their appearance. Gold diggers chase fortune, drovers push on through hardship, explorers and migrants carve out new lives, and forgotten rebels and wandering ghosts step back into the light.

But this isn't just a book about the past, it's a book about what the past leaves behind. Poems about family and growing old. About loss, and the courage it takes to keep going anyway. About belonging somewhere, and about home.

Some verses will make you laugh out loud with their larrikin humour. Others will stop you mid-page, quiet and reflective, holding up a mirror to ordinary life and all its wonder.

Perfect for anyone who loves Australian poetry, bush ballads, goldfields history, country life and folklore, this is a collection that proves the past is never really gone. It's just waiting, patiently, beneath the dust.