In mid-1824, the Bathurst district was under siege. Local Wiradjuri people had broken off contact with the English and vowed to kill all white men. Warriors raided outstations, killing people and stock with impunity while large warbands threatened stock-workers. Wealthy Sydney-based landholders clamoured for military intervention and threatened to abandon the Bathurst Plains entirely. Gudyarra (war) unearths what lead to this point, beginning with the settling of Wiradjuri lands by Europeans following Governor Macquarie's push to expand the colony west over the Blue Mountains to generate wealth from sheep and cattle. Stephen Gapps traces the guerrilla warfare by the Wiradjuri under the leadership of Windradyne, and others such as Blucher and Jingler, that occurred across the central west of New South Wales. Detailing the counterattacks by the colonists and the expeditions led by armed settlers, Gudyarra provides an important new historical account of the Wiradjuri resistance. If any single frontier conflict has all the hallmarks of war, this is it.