Richard Zachariah's next chapter: Farming still a tough game in Western District

If there's one thing he misses about his former life in Sydney, it's the sea.

Currently dividing his time between Hexham and Warrnambool, the lure of the coast is increasingly tempting. So much so, that the media identity is paying serious attention to the local property market.

"Warrnambool is the world's best-kept secret," he enthuses. "I'm trying to buy a house here. I just love the beach and that boardwalk. I'm really looking forward to summer here. "I really think Warrnambool is the next chapter for me."

Not that the veteran journalist, broadcaster and author is complaining about his wintry sojourn on the Western District plains. For a writer with a story to tell, there's something about chilly days indoors by a cosy fire in front of the computer that stimulate the creative juices.

During his self-imposed exile of the past year or so, Zachariah immersed himself in the Hexham community at the heart of his latest book's setting.

With a working title, The Shining Grasslands it's a second edition to his earlier and controversial book, The Vanished Land, disappearing dynasties of Victoria's Western District.

In his latest work, Zachariah revisits The Vanished Land's familiar theme of the changing face of farming in the Western District, the dynasties which have come and gone and their stories of wealth and power.

"The second book is more of the same, but conditions have changed," the writer says. "Agriculture is actually doing much better now. It's been a boom time for sheep.

"This book will have a lot more of a personal feel about it. It will be peppered with family histories but it will also look at the modern industrial revolution."

Zachariah foreshadows a future Western District transformed into a power base of wind farms and the use of fracking.

"It's a scary thought," he ponders. "It's such an impost of man on what was such an untrammelled grassland. The western grasslands will never be the same."

While the families profiled in the latest book will be different this time round and their names changed, Zachariah promises the "skin and bone" of their lives will be just as real.

"I'm looking for their life stories, what actually happened; the scandals, the love affairs, the influence of the Irish." Some families have already gone on the record, but he is keen to hear from more.

"I would love to talk to anyone who would like to share their stories." Zachariah is optimistic the book will be at least as well-read, if not as polarising as its forerunner.

The Vanished Land hit bookstores two years ago and became a best-seller, and also one of the most controversial modern histories of the region.

In a career in which he has been variously a media personality of note - including co-host of the ABC TV's Home Show with his then partner fashion icon Maggie Tabberer - and a farmer, the author rates the book as his best work and the achievement of which he is most proud.

The Vanished Land took the reader on a personal journey with Zachariah who spent his formative years in the district. From the age of eight to 15, during the wool boom years of 1953 to '60, he lived in Hamilton, attending school at Hamilton and Western District Boys' College where his father was principal.

The family had moved from beachside Brighton to a Boys Own adventureland where weekends and holidays were spent chasing rabbits, shooting foxes and spotlighting possums with mates off the land.

It was a time of million-pound wool cheques, Rolls-Royces driven as paddock cars, and deals done in exclusive clubs by the rich and powerful squattocracy over cigars and claret

Revisiting those rose-coloured memories of an idyllic childhood through the long lense of a 50-plus-year absence lead a wistful Zachariah to conclude that much of the Western District has been stripped of its identity, abandoned by large landowners and "ruling class" squatters who have left it to the mercy of foreign owners, superannuation funds and managers.

It's a conclusion not shared by all readers, some of whom took exception to the author's view that they had failed the land.

"It polarised readers," Zachariah acknowledges. "I had feedback that a lot of old grazing families were not happy because they felt I had somehow besmirched their reputations. "I think they got a bit hurt. I did say at one stage that they had given up a bit on their inherited land."

A year of living at the coalface has modified his view somewhat.

"Having lived here for the past 12 months, I'm getting the picture that agriculture is still a tough game. It's a very different scene. Life is not as easy as it was during the pre- '60s wool boom."

The Shining Grasslands, a title evoked by the shimmering image of a sun-bathed, rain-drenched grassy plain which captivated the author on one nostalgic drive, is still very much a work in progress.

When he's not working on the book, Zachariah has other projects in play, including a short film he's writing about the death of a marriage. Given his new-found love affair with Warrnambool, he is keen to shoot the film here and doesn't rule out writing more about the city.

"Warrnambool is definitely the new centre of the Western District. It's got a real feel about it as a business centre and also a social centre," he says.

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