PLEASE NOTE: Any book title starting with "The" - the second word of the title is used to list by.

All prices quoted are in Australian currency and include GST.
* Short trade discount.

packhorse_and_waterholePackhorse & Waterhole

by Gordon Buchanan

ISBN 0 85905 237 0, (1984 reprint of 1933 edition with new material), Soft Cover, 130pp, 180grams

$22.00 + POST


Packhorse & Waterhole is the classic of Northern Territory pastoral exploration.  Bluey Buchanan, old ‘Paraway’, was one of Australia’s greatest bushmen.

This is the story of a man who paved the way and made the tracks easy for others to follow. His life story is told by his son who went with him on his later expeditions.

Read more: Packhorse & Waterhole

paddy_bakerPaddy Baker – Picture Show Man

by Max D. Bell

ISBN 978-0-85905-093-7, (2011 new), 53pp, A4, illustrated, 180grams

$22.00* + POST


Paddy Baker (1898-1988) was born in Yundamindra on the north-eastern goldfields of W.A. As a boy he became an assistant projectionist to a travelling picture man in Sandstone, and his love of films and their showing never left him.

Read more: Paddy Baker – Picture Show Man

paddy_coverPaddy the Flat

The life of Patrick Leahey Australian hero, prospector, publican, and fighter for Digger rights

by Collected and edited by  Peter J Bridge

ISBN 978-0-85905-065-4, (2010 new), A4, 29pp, illust, 120grams

$16.00* + POST


Paddy was one of the great Australian characters of the late 19C. Born in Ireland in 1819, British Army in the Kaffir Wars, then to Victoria, Bendigo, Eureka Stockade, Lambing Flat, north Queensland, Kimberley, and then to the Murchison. He is renowned for his fights against the mass Chinese invasion of the goldfields, his outspokenness and confrontation with idiots in power, his Gladstone Arms pub and bush hospital in Halls Creek, his unique system of book keeping, and his nearly 3000 mile walk to the Kimberley in 1895. He died in 1912 and rests in a paupers grave at Fremantle.

padre_plodPadre Plod

by Barry May

ISBN 0 85905 424 1, (2007 new), Soft Cover, 265 pages, 355grams

$35 + POST


During his many years as Western Australia’s first full-time Police Chaplain, Father Barry May often attended scenes of great trauma and witnessed heart-breaking tragedy, he encountered things that would test anyone’s faith. Yet it was his own unflinching faith in God the Creator that sustained him in his grim responsibilities.

Read more: Padre Plod

pastoral_pioneersPastoral Pioneers of W.A.

1884-1889

by E.T. Hooley

ISBN 0 85905 331 8, (2004 new), soft cover, A4, 72pp, 210grams

$22.00* + POST


Hooley, writing under the name of ‘Bucolic’ described many pastoral properties from the Kimberley to the Southwest.

paynes_find_coverPaynes Find

by Alex Palmer

ISBN 978-0-85905-467-6, (2010), 115pp, illust., 170grams

$22.00 + POST

New edition updated to 2001, with 11 more pages.


Paynes Find, 400 kilometres north of Perth, is one of Western Australia's most isolated towns and to most people represents nothing more than a fleeting change in the scenery when travelling the Great Northern Highway.

It is an enigma and by rights should have gone the way of the ten or so gold mining towns that once dotted the Yalgoo district.

However, it owes it continued existence to that isolation, a centre kept alive by the mining and pastoral industries, each in turn, as their prosperity waxed and waned over the years, an oasis for them and the traveller. Contains the history and biographies of its people.

pearling_days_coverPearling Days

by John Brockman

ISBN 978-0-85905-488-1, (2010, New), A4, 89pp, 270grams

$30.00* + POST


The pearling voyage of the Sarah to the North West and Kimberley in 1889 and 1881, with an appendix on the death of WH Lowe during an expedition NE of the Gascoyne in late 1881.

From John Brockman’s 1912 manuscript. With a Foreword by Mike McCarthy of the Maritime Museum, and edited by Peter J Bridge.

One of the few books on the earliest days of pearling in WA. Extremely readable and enlightening.

pearls_and_pearling_lifePearls and Pearling Life

by E.W. Streeter

ISBN 0 85905 255 9, (1886 reprint 2007), Hard Cover, 340 pp, illust, 835 grams

$116.00* + POST


The pearling classic, impossible to obtain. With tipped in colour plates and map. A study of pearls and pearling regions of the world. Early WA pearling.

perched_on_the_railsPerched On The Rails

by Bruce Paterson

ISBN 0 85905 187 0, (1990 new), Soft Cover, 140mm x 215mm, 260 pp Illustrated, 350grams

$28.00 + POST


An account of one man's odyssey from 1945 to the '80s, through the far-flung stock camps of the East Kimberley, Queensland's Gulf country, South Australia's North East, the Wiluna desert fringe and ultimately from the Pilbara to the closely settled area of Bindoon, near Perth.

Paterson records his memories of the work, the fun, the fauna, some politics, the encroachment of technology and some marvellous but largely unsung people met along the way.

Perched on the Rails is a rattling good read, a hidden gem and one that you will be pleased to have in your library.

peterwangy_coverPeterwangy

Western Australia’s First Goldrush

 by P. J. Bridge and Gail Dreezens

ISBN 978-0-85905-457-7, (2008), A4, 106pp, Soft Cover, 300grams

$30.00* + POST


The 1870 rush to the Irwin River near Geraldton and the details of its discoverer George Brelsford, with notes on barisal guns, diamonds and gold at Mingenew.

pigeon_coverPigeon

by WC Charnley

ISBN 978-0-85905- 006-7, (2010, R),  31pp, illust, SC, B5, 60grams

$8.00 + POST


This narrative describes the hectic career of an Australian aboriginal who first learned all that the whites could teach him, and then turned against them. Placing himself at the head of a gang of "cattle-killers," he waged pitiless war on man and beast alike, and for over three years defied all efforts to capture him. Nemesis overtook him at last, but the cattlemen breathed a sigh of relief when the scourge of ranges was laid low.