Australian Stories from our Past

Australian Stories from our Past

Author: Greg and Peter Language: English Episodes: 38
G'day. We're Greg and Peter, and we spend our time digging into the tales that built this place, one person at a time. Our Australian Stories from our Past podcast is built on the idea that the grand sweep of history is really just a collection of ordinary lives, each with its own extraordinary moments. You won't just hear dry dates and events here. Instead, we sit down with diaries found in attics, letters tucked away in drawers, and the living memories of folks from all walks of life, stitching together a social history that feels personal and immediate. Each episode is a conversation, often sparked by a listener's own family journal or a shared anecdote, where we explore the cultural fabric of everyday Australia-from the struggles and triumphs of early settlers to the quiet revolutions within suburban homes. It's about the society shaped in backyards and on front verandahs. By focusing on these intimate accounts, we aim to give voice to stories that might otherwise go unheard, preserving the texture of daily life from generations gone. If you've got a tale in your own family, we'd love to hear from you. For now, pull up a chair and have a listen; you might just find a piece of your own story in the mix.
Episodes
The Long Road To Bendigo (Episode 25) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:32
Send us Fan Mail Nine weeks on the road and the Murray finally slips behind them, but Bendigo still doesn’t feel real. We pick up our 1852 overland trek right where the party crosses into Victoria, a colony gripped by Au…
E24 - Off to the Rush - Crossing the Murray [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:31
Send us Fan Mail A river in flood can be a teacher and a judge. We open on the Murray–Darling Basin’s split personality—winter-and-snowmelt-fed Murray versus summer-storm-fed Darling—to explain why our 1852 trek met a sw…
E23 - Off to the Rush - Crossing the Darling - Twice [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:32
Send us Fan Mail A newborn in a spring cart, a flood-swollen river, and a punt that won’t run on Sundays—our 1852 trek along the Murray is a study in grit, chance, and consequence. We read the original diaries aloud and…
E22 - Off to the Rush - Life and Death along the Track [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:08
Send us Fan Mail A flooded river, a stubborn pony, and a crooked border set the stage for a journey that refuses to fit neat lines on a map. We follow our hardy party from Lake Bonney through sand and scrub toward Lake V…
E21 - Off to the Rush - North West Corner to Lake Bonney [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:43
Send us Fan Mail A river can be a map, a memory, and a meeting place all at once. We follow the Murray’s sweep from Charles Sturt’s gruelling 1830 voyage and the collapse of the inland sea myth, to Joseph Hawdon’s cattle…
E20 - Off to the Rush - An Initial Challenge [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:20
Send us Fan Mail A desert boundary, a flooded creek, and forty bullocks that won’t stop heading home—this is the uneasy start of a family’s 1852 push from Kooramoora to the Bendigo goldfields. We open with the puzzle of…
E19 - Off to the Rush - Gold Fever Strikes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:57
Send us Fan Mail Bankruptcy to gold fever—William Henry Neale's remarkable journey captures the essence of Australia's 1850s transformation. After two financial collapses, including a £6,000 debt in England (equivalent t…
E18 - Diseases of the 19th Century - Part B [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:23
Send us Fan Mail The deadly journey to Australia wasn't just about surviving treacherous seas—it was about escaping invisible killers that stalked passengers in the cramped confines of sailing ships. Dr. George Mayo's di…
E17 - Diseases  of the 19th Century - Part A [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:48
Send us Fan Mail Deadly epidemics swept through 19th-century cities with terrifying regularity, leaving medical practitioners like Drs. Watts and Mayo powerless against invisible killers they couldn't understand. What ma…