The Red Hill

The Red Hill is a story about two different events that occurred over a century apart It is the story of a family of battling Queensland squatters trying to build a future in the harsh conditions. In the 1880’s, the district around Mitchell in Queensland had been severely affected by a devastating drought. With their cattle slowly dying from lack of food and water, John Barlow and two of his sons, decide to gamble all and drove their herd down the Darling River system to the new boom mining area in western New South Wales known as ‘Broken Hill’. It is an arduous journey that will see them away from home for six months and travelling through wild, almost unknown bush. On the return part of the journey, tragedy strikes. Then over a hundred years later, a small plane crashes on route to western Queensland. The pilot, gets out a Mayday call that alerts the emergency services, but as the night goes on nothing more is heard from him. The following morning, a radio crackles back to life and a very faint voice is heard saying that although injured, he is alive. He adds only that he can see a red hill, and then the radio goes silent for the last time. With that clue as their only lead to his whereabouts, the searchers begin looking for the downed plane. As fate has it, the two stories meld into one.