A mum-of-two was killed when she was crushed by a tractor in the Australian outback.

Oxford-born farm manager Zuleika Hawker, whose parents live in Dorchester, died instantly in the accident on the 35,000-acre sheep farm as she tried to pull out a piece of equipment called a grader from damp ground.

The 34-year-old, known as Zukie, leaves two sons - nine-month-old Aden and three-year-old Ruben.

Her father Donald Morrison, of High Street, Dorchester, learned of the accident while he and his wife Julia were staying with their son Alexander in Canada.

"The tractor turned over and crushed her chest," said Mr Morrison.

"She died instantly. It had been raining over there a lot and she used the tractor to help pull out a grader."

Mrs Morrison added: "She was full of life. She was loved by everyone."

Mrs Hawker's body has been flown back to Oxfordshire and a funeral will take place next Tuesday at 2pm in Dorchester Abbey, where she married her Australian husband Bruce four years ago.

The couple met while Zukie was on a year-long solo trip round the world in 1990. She ran the farm in the small town of Cunnamulla, in Queensland, in partnership with Bruce and his parents.

Bruce was seriously hurt in a motorcycle accident in February and is still recovering from his injuries.

Zukie's parents moved to Dorchester when she was very young. She went to the village's nursery and primary schools, and sang in the Abbey choir. She later went to Our Lady's Convent in Abingdon and to college in Henley before studying soil and land resource sciences at Newcastle University. She went on to study for an MSc at Cranfield Institute of Technology in Bedfordshire.

She spent four months in Kenya on a voluntary project and later worked as a research and development engineer for Thames Water.

A memorial service has already been held in Australia.

Zukie, who would have been 35 on Friday, was named after the character Zuleika Dobson, the heroine of the book by Max Beerbohm whose beauty led the carved stone heads outside the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford to whisper about her when she walked by.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.