A Novel Giveaway
I think you are all aware of how deeply proud I am of this land and its people (well the vast majority of them anyway). I think Australia is unique and I obviously believe that its uniqueness is worth capturing, keeping and savouring. It’s why I take a few gazillion photos of my corner of Oz each year, its why I fry my brain trying to choose just 12 from that gazillion to put into a Bush Babe calendar (not long before the image contenders are ready for your viewing pleasure)…
And its also why I am delighted to share with you a special giveaway this week.
I first read a Fleur McDonald novel (Red Dust) about 18 months ago – and I immediately loved her take on the gorgeous West Australian landscape and its people. Her heroine, the feisty Gemma took me along with her through a tale of intrigue, dastardly adventure and redemption, after the tragic death of her husband.
To be quite honest, there are plenty of novelists out there trying to tell this kind of story – but not all manage to take you on the kind of entertaining journey that Fleur does. I went on to inhale her second novel, Blue Skies, which follows the adventures of central character Amanda, with the same gusto.
In each unique outback novel, she paints a world that I felt I could easily step into, a heroine I could easily befriend, and a tale that kept me happily engaged throughout. I won’t spoil the stories any further for you. Trust me when I say they manage to entertain and ‘ring true’ at the same time.
One day we bumped into each other during some kind of social media stroll. I cannot recall if it was a random blog visit or a Twitter conversation or a Facebook interaction that this meeting took place. But meet we did, and in the strange new dimension of socialising which the internet has gifted us, we became friends.
IRL Fleur is an amazing multitasker – she helps her husband on their busy sheep property in Esperance in West Australia, raises her two gorgeous kiddos and (in her copious ‘spare’ time) she writes. She inspires me endlessly. (Mostly to go have a lie down, but don’t tell her, okay?) She tells me she keeps coming back for my photos and my razor sharp wit (okay, she didn’t actually say ‘razor sharp’ – I possibly embellished there a tad. Self-editing can go to one’s head sometimes!)
Fleur’s first novel (Red Dust) is now available in the United States with the second (Blue Skies) due out in January 2012. (A third, Purple Roads, is about to hit the publishers).
To celebrate her foray into new international markets, Fleur has generously shared two copies of each novel (that’s four in total) to be given away here.
To enter, simply leave a comment here sharing your favourite quote about Australia. It might be a song line, a movie quote, a snippet from a poem…
Even something you make up yourself – let your inner writer loose! Winners will be chosen at random (using Random Integar) on October 1. You can enter more than once, but try a unique quote each entry. I wanna see what you come up with!
Please also visit Fleur’s blogto learn more about her writing and her home.
(Forgive the lack of in-post links here – my internet is at a standstill today. If this resembles ANYTHING like the post I intend, I shall celebrate into the evening. *closes eyes and presses PUBLISH*)
46 Comments
Tara
Never having had a chance to visit that fine continent, I have to make do with 2nd hand accounts.
Terry Pratchett’s “Last Continent” being one of my favourites…so here you go:
“They say the heat and the flies here can drive a man insane. But you don’t have to believe that, and nor does that bright mauve elephant that just cycled past.”
— (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)
and last but not least:
“Australia, dry in the middle and middy round the edges”
–My Uncle, after recently having moved there!
Tara´s last blog post ..Pimp my Braai!
Lynda M O
Tie me kangaroo down sport, tie me kangaroo down.
That and the title line to Waltzing Matilda are the only two Aussie lines that come to mind. I miss Steve Irwin and his “Crikey!~!”
BB, I love to read too so maybe I can win a book. thanks for having a give away.
Julie Breeze
Good luck everyone, I already own these two fantastic novels, I prommise you won’t be able to put them down. I can’t wait to read Purple Roads.
Kelly
I wish I’d known about these books when I started the Global Reading Challenge earlier this year! What I did end up reading for Australia were: Dragon Man by Garry Disher and Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. The following quote appears on the back of my copy of Cloudstreet:
“Cloudstreet gets you inside the very skin of postwar working-class Australians the way Joyce makes you feel like a turn-of-the-centry Dubliner….people get up from where they have fallen, they try, they keep on. Above all, they laugh at themselves, sometimes bitterly, but much more often riotously.” – Elizabeth Ward, The Washington Post
Leenie
“So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde; and that’s it hangin’ on the shed.” Okay, probably not the most endearing quote, but one I still can’t get out of my head. If I win you’d better charge me for shipping. That’s a loooong way to pay.
Leenie´s last blog post ..I MAY BE EASILY AMUSED BUT…
Britt T.
Um, does Men at Work count!
“Do you come from a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder? Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover.”
-Britt T.
wanderinglilly77@hotmail.com
Britt T.
Um, does Men at Work count!
“Do you come from a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder? Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover.”
-Britt T.
wanderinglilly77@hotmail.com
Queenie
I don’t have a specific quote from “Quigly Down Under” but the movie was great, the landscape was great and he was great! Does that count?
debby
Australia is not very exclusive. On the visa application they still ask if you’ve been convicted of a felony – although they are willing to give you a visa even if you haven’t been. ~ P.J O’Rourke (Holidays in Hell)
Kate
Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once – anon
Kate´s last blog post ..The whole world smiles with you
Katie
Click go the shears boys, click, click, click,
Wide is his blow and his hands move quick,
The ringer looks around and is beaten by a blow,
And curses the old snagger with the bare-bellied joe.
Out on the board the old shearer stands,
Grasping his shears in his thin bony hands
Fixed is his gaze on a bare-bellied yoe,
Glory if he gets her, won’t he make the ringer go.
Katie
There are just so many good ones! Thanks for the great giveaway 🙂
“Not remotely! Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals…”
Jess: It changes so suddenly. One moment it’s paradise, the next it’s trying to kill you.
Jim: Yep, that’s how it can be up here. If it was easy to get to know it, it would be not challenging. You’ve got to treat the mountains like a high-spirited horse; never take it for granted.
“Things seem different here. They say God made Australia last, don’t you know, after he got tired of making everything else the same.”
Norma in Alabama
I can’t remember any quotes from books or movies but I do know I love to read about Australia and the diversity of the landscape. The Man From Snowy River series was a favorite of mine, not to mention the fabulous actors and musicians you have sent out to the world. I would love to read Fleur’s books and if I don’t win them I’ll check out Amazon for them.
Fleur McDonald
Wow! Lovin’ all these quotes!
Fleur McDonald´s last blog post ..My new editor
debby
“It was the kind of pure, undiffused light that can only come from a really hot blue sky, the kind that makes even a concrete highway painful to behold and turns every distant reflective surface into a little glint of flame. Do you know how sometimes on very fine days the sun will shine with a particular intensity that makes the most mundane objects in the landscape glow with an unusual radiance, so that buildings and structures you normally pass without a glance suddenly become arresting, even beautiful? Well, they seem to have that light in Australia nearly all the time.”
― Bill Bryson
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
andrew_culture
I was trying to find the Bill Bryson quote about how everything in Australia is probably trying to kill you in some what, but I failed.
debby
Actually, that was the one that I was looking for, and had to settle for the light. Which was lovely, but not nearly as funny as the point about the high number of deadly critters living in Oz.
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
debby
“It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most infertile and climatically agressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life – a large proportion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else”.
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
debby
“Australians are very unfair in this way. They spend half of any conversation insisting that the country’s dangers are vastly overrated and that there’s nothing to worry about, and the other half telling you how six months ago their Uncle Bob was driving to Mudgee when a tiger snake slid out from under the dashboard and bit him on the groin, but that it’s okay now because he’s off the life support machine and they’ve discovered he can communicate with eye blinks.”
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
debby
“I would rather have bowel surgery in the woods with a stick. If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback.”
― Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
Clare
Kids out driving Saturday afternoon pass me by
I’m just savouring familiar sights
We share some history, this town and I
And I can’t stop that long forgotten feeling of her
Try to book a room to stay tonight.
Number one is to find some friends to say “You’re doing well.
After all this time you boys look just the same.”
Number two is the happy hour at one of two hotels,
Settle in to play “Do you remember so and so?”.
Number three is never say her name.
Oh the flame trees will blind the weary driver
And there’s nothing else could set fire to this town
There’s no change, there’s no pace,
Everything within its place
Just makes it harder to believe that she won’t be around.
But Ah! Who needs that sentimental bullshit, anyway
Takes more than just a memory to make me cry
I’m happy just to sit here round a table with old friends
And see which one of us can tell the biggest lies.
There’s a girl falling in love near where the pianola stands
With her young local factory out-of-worker, holding hands
And I’m wondering if he’ll go or if he’ll stay.
Do you remember, nothing stopped us on the field in our day
Oh the flame trees will blind the weary driver
and there’s nothing else could set fire to this town.
There’s no change, there’s no pace,
Everything within its place
Just makes it harder to believe that she won’t be around.
Oh the flame trees will blind the weary driver
and there’s nothing else could set fire to this town.
There’s no change, there’s no pace,
Everything within its place
Just makes it harder to believe that she won’t be around.
COLD CHISEL! I almost live this song when I drive home 10 hours across some of the best country of THE BEST country to get there.
AUST IS IT!
annie
she’ll be right mate !!!!
Victoria
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
– from “My Country” by Dorothea McKellar
I absolutely love this poem as something who comes from outback Australia. Every word rings so true.
LeeNJ
“That’s not a knife. This is a knife!” ;^)
Victoria
I also like this quote:
White dead wood gleamed like bones ahead of me, and my feet scrunched the little stones and the gravel. Perhaps I should have been frightened, walking there alone in the dark. But I wasn’t, I couldn’t be. The cool night breeze kissed my face all over, all the time, and the smell of the wattle gave a faint sweetness to the air. This was my country; I felt like I had grown from its soil like the silent trees around me, like the springy, tiny-leafed plants that lined the track.
-Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden
Robert Atkinson
The Poem: The Man From Snowy River
by Andrew Barton (Banjo) Patterson
THERE was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.
There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up—
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.
And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony—three parts thoroughbred at least—
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry—just the sort that won’t say die—
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, “That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop—lad, you’d better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you.”
So he waited sad and wistful—only Clancy stood his friend —
“I think we ought to let him come,” he said;
“I warrant he’ll be with us when he’s wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.
“He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko’s side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse’s hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen.”
So he went — they found the horses by the big mimosa clump —
They raced away towards the mountain’s brow,
And the old man gave his orders, ‘Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills.’
So Clancy rode to wheel them—he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.
Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, “We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side.”
When they reached the mountain’s summit, even Clancy took a pull,
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.
He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat—
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.
He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill,
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.
And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.
And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reedbeds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word to-day,
And the stock men tell the story of his ride.
constance
After living in West Australia for two years many years ago, two phrases still erupt in my head from time to time:
“No worries she’ll be right luvvie,”
….
“Good on ya.”
The former was uttered by clerks (pronounced clarks) when I asked about anything ordered weeks or months before. After saying it was delayed “due to industrial action in the eastern states” and seeing my look of disappointment inevitably would come the soothing “no worries, she’ll be right ….”
Which meant? It meant ‘go on down to the beach and relax. I plan to. ‘
Wonderful times there ….
Montgomery
I like this one best, Russell Crowe quotes;
“God bless America. God save the Queen. God defend New Zealand and thank Christ for Australia.”
🙂
Sarah M.
One of my favorite quotes that involves Australia… “Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.” 🙂
debby
“Dogs don’t like me. It is a simple law of the universe, like gravity. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never passed a dog that didn’t act as if it thought I was about to take its Alpo. Dogs that have not moved from the sofa in years will, at the sniff of me passing outside, rise in fury and hurl themselves at shut windows. I have seen tiny dogs, no bigger than a fluffy slipper, jerk little old ladies off their feet and drag them over open ground in a quest to get at my blood and sinew. Every dog on the face of the earth wants me dead.”
― Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country
“No one knows, incidentally, why Australia’s spiders are so extravagantly toxic; capturing small insects and injecting them with enough poison to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. Still, it does mean that everyone gives them lots of space.”
― Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country
“[Australia] is the home of the largest living thing on earth, the Great Barrier Reef, and of the largest monolith, Ayers Rock (or Uluru to use its now-official, more respectful Aboriginal name). It has more things that will kill you than anywhere else. Of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. Five of its creatures – the funnel web spider, box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus, paralysis tick, and stonefish – are the most lethal of their type in the world. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. … If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. It’s a tough place.”
― Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
A Novel Woman
It’s not a quote about Australia, but it is from a great movie with two wonderful Australians in it.
Sybylla: I think ugly girls should be shot at birth by their parents. It’s bad enough being born a girl…but ugly and clever…
Aunt Gussie: Oh, fancy you’re clever, do you?
Sybylla: I rather hope so. I’m done for if I’m not!
My Brilliant Career with Judy Davis and Sam Neil. I loved that movie!!
A Novel Woman´s last blog post ..The Internet is a Playground
Leonie
This is my most favourite song of the bush life, by Lee Kernaghan. I get goose bumps every time I hear the opening lines….
‘The Way It Is’
Its a plume of dust down an old dirt road
and hanging off the rails at the rodeo
a back verandah with creaking boards
and the dark range of a thunderstorm
its the stockmans bar at an old bush pub
and chasing mickey’s though the scrub
its planting seeds and praying for rain
and the red dust runing through your veins
CHORUS:
its the way it is, its the way it goes
when my wheels hit the gravel road it feels like home
its the way of life, its the life i live
and im right where i want to be
thats the way it is
its a corrugated iron shed
and work boots on a backdoor step
scones in the oven and preserves in jars
talking prices at the saleyards
its long straight roads and one horse towns
and sheep dogs bringing the mob around
its she’ll be right and having a go
its good on ya mate and what do ya know?
REPEAT CHROUS
its the eerie still in the grey of dawn
feilds of wheat and rows of corn
a rusty tank and flaking paint
a weary digger on ANZAC day
its the dreamtime land and uluru
aborigine didgeridoo
its battered hats and calloused hands
the spirit of a hard won land
REPEAT CHORUS
God Bless this Great Country of Ours – Australia!!!
debby
very nice, Leonie. I’d never heard this. Here’s a link for anyone who’d like to hear it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-wvMN1Ifec
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
debby
Cripes. I didn’t know you could put a video in the comments.
Oi.
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
Barb.B
I love the way we
Aussies are pretty laid back. I am a very proud “Bushie” and would want it any other way. I don’t read many novels but I have all of Sara Hendersons books, Terry Underwood and Rachael Treasuse and they are my “Treasures”.
debby
Anonymous? Is that YOU?
debby´s last blog post ..Muscles
Pencil Writer
I’ve loved the movies referred to here and the vast scope of Australia. I have no quotes so don’t qualify for the prizes, but will probably look them up on amazon or something. It’s a beautiful place with some amazing people. Still lovin’ BB’s superb photos and writing and her sister Jeannie’s fantastic wit and story telling. The comments section here for this post is quite enlightening, too, I must say!
Jacey
Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It’ll be the only one trying – Jack Lang
Robert Atkinson
Dale Kerrigan: [voiceover] He loved the serenity of the place
Darryl Kerrigan: Hows the serenity?
Dale Kerrigan: [voiceover] I think he also just loved the word.
Darryl Kerrigan: So much serenity.
Melissa
Don’t you love how the Internet leads to new friendships? Thanks for the opportunity to win these books.
So my first thoughts were immediately of ‘My Country’ but I figured lots of people would think of that immediately, then I thought of Gibblewort….. Tee hee. So as Gibbleworth says
“….this Australia is full if ghosts and laughing birds and….and giant creatures that’ll eat you up, and…and sticks that turn into devils, and…and walkin’ pin-cushions, and…and floods and river monsters, and…and I can’t think what else!’
Fleur McDonald
Who is judging this BB? I hope it’s not me!
Fleur McDonald´s last blog post ..My new editor
jeanie
Its not really an exclusively Australian quote, but it is attributed to an Australian reptile expert in Douglas Adams’ book, “Last Chance to See”
Don’t get bitten.
jeanie´s last blog post ..School Holidays – Day 1 and really hoping that it won’t be Disaster 1
debby
Hssssssst, Fleur! You don’t want to be asking questions like that…BB will flop you in a judge’s chair so fast it will make your head spin. She’ll wander off to take a couple thousand pictures somewhere far away and leave you to sort this mess out on your own.
FYI, all of my quotes are from a very funny Yank, and so I am disqualified. I just love to laugh, and so I had a fine time looking things up.
debby´s last blog post ..I don’t know…
Fleur McDonald
Debby, that’s what I was afraid of!
Fleur McDonald´s last blog post ..My new editor
debby
Fleur, maybe if you tip toe off, she won’t notice you’ve left in all the hubbub of her comment section. Leonie? Crank up the volume on your video there, and everyone else? Start talking. We’re trying to help Fleur out of this little pickle she’s gotten herself into.
I’ll distract her a bit too. “Hey! BB! Look over there! Tremendous cloud formation against a setting sun! Photo op! Photo op! Go, girl! Those sunsets don’t last forever!”
Run, Fleur, RUN!
debby´s last blog post ..Taking a Stand
BB
You mad bunch!!! Honestly. A girl steps out for a SECOND and all kinds of mayhem breaks loose in her comments section. My ears SHOULD have been burning. To set everyone’s mind at ease, this is a RANDOM draw (thanks to help from Random Integar) so no-one ‘judges’ any entries. I AM going to totally keep this set of comments as awesome background material for future writing endeavours.
♥
BB