Australia's Outback cattle trails under threat from plans to lease and sell them off For generations of Australian ranchers the criss-crossing trails known as the Long Paddock have been at the heart of a frontier way of life which shaped a nation. The trails, together with the grasslands and bush along them that stretch across the Outback from Queensland to New South Wales, were the sinews of a continent for 170 years - mythologised in poetry and song - until drought and the spread of suburbs threatened to destroy them. The trails were started in the 1830s as settlers pushed into Australia's interior. As ranchers went deeper and deeper into the bush, drovers would take the cattle back on epic drives to the coast. They wrote songs and poems about the white clouds and saltbush plains they crossed on the trips, and 170 years later ranchers still rely on the Long Paddock to graze their stock as drought has shrivelled much of Australia's bush grazing. Robert Groth, whose family has worked the land for 156 years, is one of the farmers who has joined forces with conservationists to protest against a feared sell-off of land to loggers....