Traipsing forty miles for four days through the Atherton Tablelands outback with sheets of tin on his shoulder, the plight of Gladys Borgert's grandfather to build his family a hessian bag-walled home is one of many remarkable tales from her life's story.
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Ms Borgert had been keeping a diary of her life for 45 years when she met Isla Costa, a former manager of Mungalli Falls Outdoor Education Centre and a published children's book author.
"She asked if I minded helping her sort out her diary entries and write a book. I'd always wanted to...we started going through thousands of diary entries...to write a story," Ms Costa said.
For eight years, the pair plugged away at the book, through distance and health issues, delving into three generations of far North Queensland pioneering.
"At one stage we nearly pulled up and quit because I couldn't do it anymore. I had open heart surgery," Ms Costa said.
But a chance to share a unique and raw look into life in the far North Queensland outback was too good to give up, and the pair eventually finished the book - 'Rawhide Tears and Billy Tea'.
Over decades, "Bulleringa Station evolved from a bush block to a cattle station of commercial breeding stock before being purchased by the Queensland Government National Parks of Australia".
Now considered a nature reserve, only a select few can enter the unique land that Ms Borgert once called home.
'Rawhide Tears and Billy Tea' gives readers a glimpse into the raw brutality of everyday life for remote Aussie workers.
"Basically it's about growing up in a really, really poor, harsh environment and having to learn very young to get on a horse, ride, go mustering when Gladys was just a child with her brother (Jack)," Ms Costa said.
"Her father (Jack) was the handyman around (Bulleringa) Station, and her mother (Dorothy) did come out on mustering rides. One time they shot 300 brumbies in a year, and they used to go pig hunting. She grew up mostly with men all around her...on mustering camps.
"They used to dig post holes by hand...(her uncles) used to muster cattle and take them 300-400 miles by horse back, sometimes for months at a time.
"It's a different outlook on life. We've got things so easy now...back then it was do or die."
Despite the remoteness of the station, the family managed to keep a lifeline, a way to stay connected with the outside world.
"They bought a plane and Gladys learnt how to fly...That settled the remoteness a bit," Ms Costa said.
"You got supplies once every six months, there was no such thing as going to the shop - you had to rely on your own resources to live."
Ms Costa chuckled as she recounted a story about Jack Snr stopping in at a station on his way home, where, because he was short on meat, he was gifted some rib bones.
"On the way back to the station...the car blew up and caught fire and he had to walk home, 40 miles away...there were no phones," Ms Costa said.
"Five days later, his son came across the car and the rib bones in the car and thought he'd burned to death."
'Rawhide Tears and Billy Tea' has been a hit - selling 35 copies in the first week before it was snapped up by a publisher.
"The whole story starts back in her grandparents' time in the early 1900s...back in the war. Her grandfather was a French-Italian migrant," Ms Costa said.
"(It's about) the pioneering spirit...it depicts how people used to live...from Cobb and Co Coach right through to flying planes, because her brother got a plane license."
The authors both had farms on the Atherton Tablelands, but Ms Costa has since relocated to Townsville.
Ms Borgert is still close with her brother, Jack, and they have been in partnership, running a beef farm in the Tablelands, Dirrinvale, for 40 years.
Ms Costa now plans to write a book with her sister about their own childhood, growing up at Mungalli Falls.
'Rawhide Tears and Billy Tea' can be purchased at https://islagladys.com.au/.
