Rachael Jennifer Treasure (; born 4 December 1968) is an Australian journalist, author and novelist. A former jillaroo, and reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on rural affairs, she is a passionate working dog trainer and in 2007 received Tasmania's rural woman of the year award.<ref name="ruralwomen2007">RIRDC Rural Woman Award Winner 2007 for Tasmania – Rachael Treasure, Rural Women's Award website. Retrieved 26 October 2008</ref> Early life In the early 1990s Rachael worked out of the ABC Sale office in Victoria. She met her ex-husband, John Treasure, in 1996 while a reporter and started helping John and his brother with their High Plains Droving horse riding business on weekends. This entailed taking tourists on their cattle droving and salting trips on the Dargo High Plains. The Treasure family has been droving cattle in this area since the 1870s. In this period Rachael developed an interest in dog psychology and training with trainer Paul Macphail and became herself an instructor for training working dogs. Rachael then moved to Queensland to work on a cattle station, which provided Rachael with the opportunity to write her first novel, Jillaroo, which became an iconic work of Australian fiction and began a flood of novels in the 'rural lit' genre. She then moved home to Tasmania to develop her interests in regenerative agriculture, dog training and breeding, and breeding Waler stock horses on Rachael's family property at Runnymede. Bestselling novelist Her three novels, Jillaroo, The Stockmen, and The Rouseabout, have all been bestsellers in Australia selling more than 100,000 combined copies by the end of 2007. Random House signed her to a four-book contract for British release during 2008. Two of her novels, The Stockmen and The Rouseabout, have been translated and published in German as Tal der Sehnsucht : Australien-saga(München : Blanvalet, 2006) and Wo der Wind singt : Australien-Saga (München : Blanvalet, 2008). She has since gone on to write three further best-selling novels, The Cattleman's Daughter, The Farmers Wife and Cleanskin Cowgirls, two short story collections, The Girl & the Ghost Grey-Mare and Fifty Bales of Hay, a dog training manual Dog Speak and a book of inspirations, Don't Fence Me In. Her novels all deal with contemporary issues related to agriculture and life on the land including succession planning and rural youth issues and relationships set within the Australian rural culture and traditions. Community activism In 2008 Levendale Primary School was