DISCOVER THE STORY | BEHIND-THE-SCENES | AFUERA AW20

 "But the bush hath moods and changes,

as the seasons rise and fall,
And the men who know the bush-land
- they are loyal through it all."

 

- Banjo Paterson

 

The spirit of the Australian outback reveals its mystery, its melancholy, its charm and the unifying spirit of man and land.

The rustic, sheep station charm of this family run property provided a lifetime of memories for our team as we traversed the land led by an 86 year old woman whose heart was as strong as her hands, hands that still knew how to round up a flock of sheep sturdily behind the wheel of an old truck.

Gordon Dowling, who has since passed on, was born in 1922 on this land and as he waved us goodbye in his Akubra Statesman he also gesticulated that the interconnectedness to land is the source of a contented life.  Land is more than a place to grow crops; farms are locations with history, symbolic meaning, repositories of emotion and identity.

The land is the mother and we are of the land; we do not own the land rather the land owns us. The land is our food, our culture, our spirit and our identity

- Dennis Foley, a Gai-mariagal and Wiradjuri man, and Fulbright scholar.