backblock

Definitions

1. A remote tract of land in the interior; hence (in plural) sparsely populated country far from major cities and lacking conveniences common in urban areas.
   Australia, New-Zealand, plural-normally
2. Land behind that which fronts on water; land without a permanent watercourse.

Examples

“I speak⟳ solely for the backblock roads, and I contend that the time has arrived when the Government should turn⟳ its attention to the metalling of these roads.”

“It has happened in other districts that new settlement has turned the old centres into isolated backblocks.”

“Backblocks hardship is a very real thing, but Mary Scott expresses it somewhat too much in the Victorian ‘There′s a tear⟳ on your eye’ mode, little graves on the hillside and old servants, horses and dogs, faithful to the last⟳.”

“The weeping man was an emancipist who had a backblock in the next valley & sometimes came over to see⟳ his cobber the shepherd, both being Roscommon men.”

CEFR level