Macklin has researched his topic thoroughly and has woven fascinating details about the expeditions into the biography, including the convict who lay in the dirt to avoid continuing on; the fellow explorer who took Hume’s tent; the stock the teams took with them; the insects that bit them; and the methods they devised for crossing water. Macklin also provides fascinating detail of the events in Hume’s lifetime, such as the Gold Rush and the bushranger period.

I had only one quibble with the author: the use of the word ‘discovered’ throughout the text, especially the subtitle, ‘the man who discovered Australia’s greatest rivers and richest farmlands’. To discover implies that the places were previously unknown. They were most definitely known to the Aboriginal people who lived in or nearby them. Perhaps ‘located’ would have been a better choice of words. Hume found the lands because he, being a remarkable linguist of Aboriginal languages and culturally sensitive, consulted with the people who lived in the lands he was travelling through.