Heart of the nation: Barcaldine 4725

JOANNE Crawford cracks a sweat within a minute of going to work in the woolsheds of Queensland.

Barcaldine

JOANNE Crawford cracks a sweat within a minute of going to work in the woolsheds of Queensland.

She's a Kiwi, accustomed to the temperate climate of the North Island, and she finds the heat and humidity of the Outback unbelievable. "It was 43 degrees the other day - I burnt my lips on a water bottle," she says with an incredulous laugh. Being a wool handler is also more physically demanding in Australia, she reckons; the fleeces are heavier, up to 6.5kg each, which adds up when you're doing a thousand a day. "It's like being in the gym for eight hours," she says. The only upside? The dags on Aussie sheep aren't nearly as bad.

Crawford, who's pictured tossing a fleece onto the table at a woolshed in Barcaldine, in an image from Andrew Chapman's new book Around The Sheds, was just seven when she earned her first pay packet as a wool handler, or "roustabout". She has always loved the job. Loved the itinerant lifestyle, which has taken her to 3000 farms and "many beautiful places" over the years. Loved the company of shearers. And loved that feeling of being a part of a gun team, hell-bent on speed and efficiency, always staying one step ahead of the shearers as the fleeces fly off the boards.

It was a special reason that brought Crawford to Australia 14 months ago. She's had a lot of bad luck in life. She and her husband Clint were trying for a baby for years but she kept losing them, inexplicably; then, in 2006, Clint was killed in a car crash. The grief overwhelmed her; she didn't sleep at night for two years. To compound it all, she got cancer of the lymph nodes. All this while continuing to work in the woolsheds.

Well, Crawford turned 50 last month, and has been clear of cancer for four years. And now she's decided on a new direction for her life: she's going to go home and train as a nutritionist. It took the trip to Australia to realise that. Coming here, away from the support of friends and family, was about proving something to herself. Proving that she has finally let go of Clint; that she's ready to move on. "I wanted to see if I could survive on my own. And I have," she says. "I have."

Around The Sheds (Five Mile Press, $40) is out now