Once Upon A Hume Volume 4 pursues our journey down the ‘Great South Road’, as the Hume Highway was once known. We follow the original route, moving from personality to personality, catching up with some of the intriguing folk who lived near, or preyed upon, or prospered there, from the earliest days. Few of these folk or features are well-known. All have a story to share. In this volume, we explore the stretch of Old Hume highway between Gunning and Gundagai. We meet odd and interesting people and investigate intriguing places and events. Mountain-tops and murderers. Suicides and spooks. Flivvers and floatplanes and floods. Bushfire, pandemics, bunyips and bridges. Persons colourful, admirable, execrable and astute. Locales remote, abandoned, busy and becalmed: * Rapine, revels and reverence at Jerrawa. * The eight bewhiskered sons of Henry Manton. * Two doughty Yass ladies not to be trifled with. * Mount Bowning. Unlicked. * Deep waters at Burrenjuck. * ‘Spider’ Martin and the Bookham Battler. * The Mystery of Mary Mathews. * The Flivver and the Monkey Nose. * The Jugiong Rioters. * Apocalypse at Coolac. * The Parable of the Warby Brothers at Mingay. * Gunda-guys, Gunda-gals. One night in the Niagara Café. … and many other persons and prominences. Once Upon a Hume is a travellers’ companion. Anecdotal, informative, and chatty, it peoples the Hume Highway landscape with vivid characters and occurrences, profiles prominences, explains place-names, and makes an absorbing panorama of the passing show. This is the fourth of several volumes about the colourful humanity who dwelt Once Upon A Hume.

This series explains the many important aspects of the colonial Economy of N.S.W. between 1788 and 1835. Guiding the colonial economy was the strong hand of a dedicated public servant - the first senior appointment by a Colonial Governor - that appointee was William Lithgow -the first Deputy Assistant Commissary-General, then the first Auditor-General of the Colony. In conjunction with the work of Lithgow, the development of the public service accounting and finance areas is developed. The dual volumes of Guiding the economy and Financing the Colony provides the foundation story of the Treasury operations in Colonial N.S.W.

The Brumby holds a special place in the Australian psyche. Immortalised in films such as The Man from Snowy River and books like the Silver Brumby series, Brumbies epitomise the spirit of freedom and courage beloved by most Australians. Today, however, they face an uncertain future. Considered by some to be feral pests and increasingly marginalised in lands that have been their home for over a century, Brumbies need our support more than ever before if they are to be protected for the enjoyment of future generations. Bringing together breathtaking photographs of Brumbies in the wild as well as often thought-provoking and entertaining stories from people privileged enough to have encountered or worked with them personally, Brumby celebrates the beauty, strength and indomitable spirit of these amazing animals.