A former engineer has swapped infrastructure for storytelling, drawing on the Kimberley to write his debut novel.

Perth author Matthew Park has released his first novel, The Paths Of Warradonga, a coming-of-age story set on a fictional Kimberley cattle station in 1982.

The novel follows Frankie, a troubled 17-year-old from London’s East End who is sent to the outback for a second chance after a reckless mistake.

Immersed in the heat, dust and challenges of station life, he must confront his past while searching for acceptance and belonging.

While the characters are fictional, Park said the region became one of the book’s defining influences after years spent working in the East Kimberley, including as engineering design manager for the $200 million Ord irrigation expansion project between 2011 and 2014.

“The environment gets under your skin somehow,” Park said.

“The combination of the red mesas, boab trees, bush, termite mounds and water everywhere after the wet is very dramatic and very unique.”

Park, who emigrated from London in 1994, said the idea for the novel first emerged during a creative writing course in 2006, when he wrote a television drama about a troubled London teenager arriving in the Kimberley.

“My tutor told me I should do something with it, but I had a young family and a busy engineering career, so it sat on the backburner,” he said.

The story continued to evolve through camping trips on the Gibb River Road and in the Bungle Bungles, repeated visits to the Ord project site, and conversations with people working on Kimberley cattle stations.

“The locals I met were very straightforward, no-nonsense people,” he said.

“That honesty and resilience definitely helped shape the world of the book.”

Park retired in 2023 at 58 to pursue a lifelong ambition of writing fiction.

“I wanted to prove that an engineering background doesn’t preclude creativity,” he said.

“I certainly didn’t do it for the money.”

After spending two years refining the manuscript, The Paths Of Warradonga has now been self-published.

Park is already working on a sequel, with the first four chapters complete.