A tough but true tale of an 18-year-old youth travelling through outback Australia in the late sixties. It was the early hours of the morning when I suddenly felt an extreme tiredness that seemed to take over. My befuddled brain was struggling to function as I made my way off the road towards a cane field. 'If I can just get an hour of shut-eye, I'll be okay,' I said to myself as I lowered my body to the ground. Oblivion took over immediately. I slowly became aware of a strange sensation of movement. Rousing myself from my slumber, I suddenly realised that some furry creatures were scurrying all over my torso, and that one of them seemed to be nibbling at the unhealed scabs that still studded my face. 'Bloody Hell! Rats!'
'Toughen up' had certainly become the catch cry for a young teenager travelling rough throughout the back blocks of Southern and Western Australia, but nothing could have prepared Bruce for the testosterone-driven shearing sheds of outback Queensland in 1969! Following on from Bruce's first memoir 'Catch The Wind - From The Nullarbor To The Far Northwest in 68' this entirely new memoir faithfully records his always memorable, sometimes brutal, but often hilarious travel adventures. Meet feared shed fighter Knuckles as he bullies his way through the shearing season with overwhelming menace and physical violence, while rouseabout car racing fiends Gaz and Bluey make the regular 50-kilometre trip to the pub the most hair-raising experience of a lifetime. Meanwhile, the extremes of the hard work in the shearing sheds demanded a high-protein diet that was almost as difficult to describe as it was to digest. Bruce had left his home near Melbourne in search of adventure and respite from a broken heart: what he found was some of the wildest characters to be found in the Australian bush.
Join Bruce in this rowdy coming-of-age tale set against the dramatic backdrop of rural Queensland.
