Hell West and Crooked

Wow, what ecological destruction humans wrought. Burning the forest so it was easier to walk through! Also liked how he tied a log to the back of his truck for break when he went down hills.

Described as the classic Australian outback yarn, Hell West and Crooked by Tom Cole lives up to the billing. As a youth Tom Cole emigrated from Britain to Australia in 1921 to chase a more exciting life and quickly found his feet in droving and mustering cattle. He fitted in well with the characters of the outback, can obviously tell a story well and is an excellent collector of tales. This was written much later in life, with the assistance of his diaries.

"Hell west and crooked" is defined at the start of the book as 'A cattleman's expression meaning all over the place. 'The horses are hell west and cooked - it'll take a week to muster them' and as well as a good name for his autobiography, it goes some way to explaining the hectic lifestyle and experiences of Tom Cole.

From droving (moving mobs of cattle from the stations to sale, usually to the larger towns) and mustering (rounding up all the cattle running loose on a station for yarding, where ear-tagging, branding, castrating and other things are undertaken, usually precedes droving the steers of saleable quality to market) Tom moved in to managing a few stations as the head stockman, usually in the short term, and horsebreaking (training and making fit for riding) before venturing into buffalo hunting (for skins) and crocodile hunting (also for skins) when the markets were good for that.

As well as a mostly linear timeline explanation of that progression, Cole weaves in the stories of the people he interacts with in the outback. He names hundreds of (mostly) men he meets, works with and drinks with, and tied up in his tales are some of the more well known outback stories. Many of these cross over with other authors anyone who follows my reviews will have heard of, particularly Ion Idriess, but also Frank Clune and Peter Pinney. These included Aboriginals Wonngu (the Caledon Bay murder of Japanese fishermen, as well as a failed police patrol searching for him) and Nemarluk (associated with the murder of prospectors Stephens and Cook), plus good background on the overland telegraph, Sidney Kidman (the Cattle King) who set up a vast number of stations, and even the original flying doctor who was precursor even to John Flynn and his flying doctor service in the outback.

Cole's tales cover the period from his arrival in Australia in 1921, his brief time in the Queensland Outback before his found his place in the Northern Territory Outback. The book ends at the outbreak of World War II, and has a short paragraph on completion which simply states he did not see Arnhem Land again for 45 years.

I understand there is a sequel which covers time he spent in New Guinea hunting crocs.

This is 5 stars, and was going to be from the first page. If you have any interest in this genre then do yourself a favour and go find a copy.

A quote in hindsight. P167

Reflecting, fifty-odd years later, on what was without doubt an idyllic lifestyle, it is difficult to find anything or anywhere today that is remotely like it. Motor vehicles tearing across bitumen roads day and night, cattle mustered with helicopters, aeroplanes landing almost daily at the homesteads, radiotelephone communications, massive road trains shifting cattle a couple of hundred miles in a day... undreamed of in 1930. (from 1988 when the book was published).