Cirrus@Austlit

'While living in Central Australia Arthur Groom fell under the spell of our harsh and fascinating country, captivated by its limitless distances and unbelievable colour. Hermannsburg, the home of artist Albert Namatjira and of other well-known painters, became Groom’s headquarters, and from there he made numerous expeditions into wilder and more inaccessible regions.

'Travelling on foot with an Indigenous guide and a team of camels, Groom explored the Macdonnell and Krichauff ranges, the desert country past the salty Lake Amadeus, Uluru and the Olgas. Based on the notes and photographs he took as he travelled, I Saw a Strange Land is Groom’s wonderful record of his extensive journey through the heart of our continent—our ‘strange land.’' (Publication summary)

The mystery of endemic theft of valuables on a station is solved when an eccentric, sometimes talking parrot, that arrives with a new station cook, encounters the cook's Aboriginal off-sider in a pantry accidentally left open overnight.

An Aboriginal man whose romantic interest is about to go off with a powerful man from another group destroys the threat by tipping flour down on him from a much-feared tree under which the stranger has camped.