Powell has been fascinated with Australia’s iconic bushrangers since he was a young man on a family holiday in Kelly country.  He borrowed his dad’s car and drove through the country side following the gangs moves through the Wombat Ranges.

His new book, which covers NSW and Victoria is a field guide to bushrangers, but also includes much history and information as well. 

“It’s where you can go now and see where history happened,” Powell said. 

The book features the Hunter Valley where the likes of Captain Thunderbolt began his career with robberies at Tocal and Paterson. He was Australia’s longest surviving bushranger who took refuge in Barrington Tops and roamed the region around Uralla and the North West Slopes before being shot and killed at Kentucky Creek in 1870.

The story of Jessie Hickman is also covered. Accused of murdering her third husband she was a successful cattle duffer who hid in a cave in Widden Valley, south-west of Muswellbrook, before dying and being buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave at Sandgate Cemetery.

According to Powell bushranging began in the Hunter in about 1830 and includes a rich history of escapes, crimes, murders, robberies and captures by a wide array of bushranger characters in locations sprawling across the valley. 

The book also covers the Ned Kelly Gang, Captain Starlight, Ben Hall and many others from the colonial past. 

Many of the sites in the book can be seen from the roadside or vantage points close by, Powell said. 

“You can get a feel for the bushranger country and those wild exciting times that are now long gone,” Powell said. 

“The bushranger era is still hanging about.”

Bushranger Tracks is published by New England Publishing. The book costs $24.99 and is available in book stores and online.