Illustrated Edition.
'Mailman Of The Birdsville Track' is the story of a remarkable Australian, Tom Kruse, driver of the Marree-to-Birdsville mail truck and star of the 1954 documentary 'The Back of Beyond'.
Once a fortnight for twenty years, Kruse loaded up his battered Leyland Badger and drove the 1000 kilometres from Marree to Birdsville and back, delivering mail and supplies to the isolated residents of the famous inland stock route. This was the Birdsville Track of the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s; when the Track was nothing more than two wheel ruts through stony desert, over sand hills and across flooded plains; before the Birdsville Track grew into the wide, graded, gravel roadway it is today. Tom's life story reflects the character of outback Australia in the mid 1900s - it was not a place for the timid or weak, but it was a place where this charming and humble man thrived and conquered.
