Talking Location With … Sherryl Clark – AUSTRALIA’s Bush and Outback

#TalkingLocationWith... Sherryl Clark, author of Mad, Bad and Dead – Australia’s Bush and Outback.

The bush and the outback of Australia have long been the inspiration for stories. “The Drover’s Wife”, a short story by Henry Lawson was first published in 1892, and it told of a woman and her four children, alone and isolated in the bush, terrorised by a snake that is eventually killed by the woman and her dog.

In another story by Barbara Baynton, a woman with a baby is isolated way out in the bush and is eventually murdered by a passing swagman (vagrant). There has been no shortage over the years of novels and films that depict the bush and the outback as scary!

Yet Australia is a huge country, and “the bush” and “the outback” have myriad faces, with myriad landscapes. You can be deep in the rainforest in northern Queensland, or on a long straight road in the Northern Territory, or driving the winding Great Ocean Road in Victoria with its beaches and bays and rock formations. For contrasts, you only have to compare the cliffs and waterfalls of the Blue Mountains near Sydney, NSW, with the desert and rock formations near Coober Pedy in central Australia. Coober Pedy is so hot that many people
live underground. It’s why tourists love it – there is so much to see and everywhere is different.

One of the marvellous things in Australia is the unique wildlife. No other country has kangaroos or echidnas or wombats. Recent studies have shown that 60% of the world’s perching birds come from Australia. Twenty out of twenty-five of the world’s most venomous snakes live in Australia. Phew!

When it came to the setting of my third Judi Westerholme novel, Mad, Bad and Dead, using the bush as part of the story was important. It’s so easy to get lost – much of the forest in this country is eucalypt trees, and they do tend to look the same. You can be going around in circles without realising, so if bushwalking (tramping) is your thing, you need to stay on the tracks.

But the prospect of seeing some of the wildlife is worth the walk, wherever you go. Bird watchers will be richly rewarded, whether it’s hearing a kookaburra with its raucous laugh or watching rainbow lorikeets squabbling over fruit. In Mad, Bad and Dead, a young girl hides in the bush very effectively. And when Judi goes to the local lookout hill, the bush below looks like a thick green quilt, impenetrable to the eye. However, below the canopy there is plenty to see. You could be walking along, hear a rustle in the undergrowth and look around to find an echidna determinedly scratching for bugs. Or a wallaby leap out of the undergrowth and bolt away. Judi herself lives near the bush and loves the solitude, but she also understands that it’s a place to hide and bury secrets. Her small town of Candlebark is one I invented, but like any Australian country town, it has an old pub with history and stories (some of which appeared in previous novels). Many pubs have accommodation and great food, and perhaps a ghost or two as well.

Judi and Andre have inherited the Candlebark pub, but it’s a bit off the beaten track, as Aussies say, so they struggle to make a living. Andre’s chef talents are the one thing that might save them, and having a great range of local wines to offer customers. It was fun to invent a few menus and use my waitressing experience to bring the pub bistro to life!

Sherryl Clark

Connect with Sherryl via her website  and follow her on Twitter @sherrylwriter and Instagram @sherrylwriter

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