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Blogs by Barbara Hartmann King
Coloured Sands Trilogy 10/28/2011 5:46:27 PM
I have decided to write my blog in the form of a biography as I really did live the I write about. Type or Paste your work here...
Hi,
I am Barbara Hartmann King from Queensland, Australia. I would like to share with you my experience of writing my outback novels , the trilogy with the title:Coloured Sands. My rural beginnings in country Australia began many years ago...
1960: Although I was reared by business people in a country
town, I married a farmer, changing my life completely.I
married Rob King at the age of 20 and spent the first fewyears of marriage on a small dairy farm at Hampton, a tiny hamlet
25km from Toowoomba (Queensland’s Garden City) on the Darling Downs. In 1965
with three babies already, we shifted onto the home property Oakdale, which was 1,200 acres freehold at
Mount Binga on the Crow’s Nest –Blackbutt Road, situated 40 kilometres from
Crow’s Nest and 20 kilometres from Blackbutt. We built a house on the property
to be close to my husband’s parents and to be partners with them on the
property. Oakdale was nestled in an
area where thousands of acres had been sown to pine plantations by the State
Forestry Department. The nearest town to Oakdale
was Blackbutt where our sons would attend primary school, travelling the long
route by bus on the rough gravelly road, winding through a maze of pine
plantations. We believe the road was the original bullock track that was used
for snigging logs to the various sawmills of the time.George King, (Rob’s father) had, in the early
days operated his own bullock team in the timber industry, the beasts of burden
living out their allotted lifespan on the Oakdale
property, revered for their contribution to the early settlers.
Rob intended to clear more land on Oakdale for grain production,
concentrating on wheat, maize and corn. In time this happened with the whole
family becoming involved in the tedious task of ‘stick picking’ before the land
was put to the plough. We now had 400 acres of cultivation land and hopefully a
new future with crops. The tractor was up-graded and as soon as rain fell, the
new venture would be underway. Several years later at the age of twenty-nine in
1969 I gave birth to a fourth son to complete our beautiful family.
Tomorrow: Life at Oakdale – fleeting memories from1965-1980 – fodder for country
novels.
