Never just a farmer’s wife
I’m often asked what sparked my interest in Elizabeth Macarthur. Many years ago I managed a government grants program and had the privilege to work with some grant applicants from outback Queensland – including a group of women farmers. I was very green and the farmers were very kind. They took the time to explain…
Transporting Horses Over the Sea
Yesterday was Melbourne Cup Day and so naturally my thoughts turned (yet again) to horses; several of which arrived with the white settlers of the First Fleet. Horses have continued to arrive on the Australian continent ever since. But how? Those first horses arrived by ship, of course, but pause for a moment and consider…
Cockatoos in Renaissance Art – rethinking what we thought we knew
This gorgeous still life hangs in the Los Angeles Getty Centre and last week I had the privilege of seeing it in person.* Check the date: it was painted in 1650. That’s 120 years before Cook ‘discovered’ Australia. So how on earth did an Australian cockatoo come to find itself featuring in a Renaissance artwork?…
News Flash! Sir John Franklin’s 1846 Northwest Passage expedition ship found
The ABC is today reporting that “the remains of one of two ships used by a former governor of Tasmania on a doomed Arctic mission in 1846 have been found….HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, led by Sir John Franklin, a former governor of Van Diemen’s Land, disappeared on a expedition to find the Northwest Passage,…