The Lambing Flat is a novel about belonging. A modern story set in an historical period, it follows the parallel journeys of two main characters: Lok, a young Chinese man who arrives with his father in Australia, in the 1860s, in search of gold; and Ella, a young woman growing up on a cattle property in central Queensland, in an alien, drought-ridden landscape.
Lok and his father travel the harsh country of south-west NSW in search of their fortune and are caught up in the infamous Lambing Flat riots, during which white diggers attacked the unsuspecting Chinese diggers, scalping some and driving many more thousands from the fields. Lok loses his father during this riot, and, untrusting of any other human contact, sets off in search of more diggings in an attempt to buy his way back to China, back to the only place he remembers belonging. He hears rumours of gem mines in central Queensland and makes his way north.
Ella has grown up on the cattle property and knows nothing else. In the desolate landscape, she is haunted by her mother's conviction that she does not belong in the dryness of the bush, but by the sea, where her mother grew up.
Lok eventually comes across Ella's property on his journeys, and through their subsequent relationship they each discover what it is to belong - to another person, if not to a homeland.
This is the first fiction novel that specifically explores the Lambing Flat riots from a Chinese perspective. It tells a story oft-repeated in the history of Australia - that of immigrants and the hardships that they suffer based on racial prejudice. It also explores the landscape of central Queensland when it was largely unknown, in places beautiful, brutal and untouched, and the efforts made by settlers to scrape a life out of the dust.
