An odyssey across Australia — how 11,000 sheep were walked from Victoria into the outback

Conversations

In 1882, thousands of sheep set off from a property in Western Victoria. Their destination was a huge station in the Northern Territory, land which a sheep had never set foot on. To get there, these animals and their drover battled drought, flood, famine and doubt.

Tom Guthrie is a winemaker and sheep farmer in Western Victoria, and is a descendent in a long line of enterprising farmers.

Almost 150 years ago, after surviving shipwrecks, fires and floods, Tom's ambitious great grandfather sent 11,000 sheep by foot to unseen land in the Northern Territory.

The journey took 16 months, and the sheep were led almost 3,500km by their drover, through drought, flood and famine.

It became the longest sheep drive in Australian history.

In recent years, Tom has had to call on his family's grit and resilience to get through the most unimaginable tragedy for a parent -- the loss of a child.

This episode of Conversations deals with family history, ancestry, farming, books, death of a child, Australiana, winemaking, colonisation, grief, fatherhood, death and the loss of a child.