ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

THE FENCE

© Ross Magnay, 2012

From Jimbour on the Darling Downs, it wriggles off avoiding towns,
and snakes off to the Great Australian Bight.
Over hill and gibber plain, through country rarely seeing rain,
It’s destination Nundroo on the coast.
Three thousand miles and plus some more, from Eastern coast to southern shore,
to cliffs along the Great Australian Bight.
It weathers scorching summer rays, the freezing nights and desert days,
it’s journey finally ending at the sea.
Protecting farmer’s mobs of stock, it stands vigil ‘round the clock,
and keeps the dogs in country to the north.
Miles of posts and netting wire, weathers flood and grassy fire,
seeing lots of country from ol’ Jimbour to the sea.

Great Poem Ross - the dingo fence was always my point of direction if I got 'lost' on our place, as it was easily seen if you climbed up a hill. It runs along the edge of Sundown National Park at Stanthorpe. One of the biggest dingoes ever (supposedly) shot in Queensland about 80 years ago was shot at Springdale - I remember seeing an old yellowed newspaper clipping tacked on the wall when we bought the place but I have never been able to find anything on Google about it - there are still a few dogs up there and the fence contractor goes along the fence regularly but as fast as he fixes a hole pigs push another one through. Pigs are a bigger menace in that area at the moment than dingoes are.

Bloody big backyard though Ross.

Good one mate.

Bob

Which side are the pigs Maureen?.....before they push the holes in I mean!...bloody destructive things they are, pity the dogs can't sort them out then we would have one less problem!..

She's a big back yard alright Bob, the poem is hardly a literary masterpiece, but I was travelling south between Xmas and New Year and when we crossed the fence just out of Coober Pedy I though, "I must write a bit of a poem about that one day, since I haven't written much for awhile."....and so here it is.

One of my brothers who lived in Coober Pedy had the contract with another bloke for a couple of years to maintain the fence along that section, I don't know how far their section covered, but at least they don't have to worry about pigs out there!

Really enjoyed that Ross.

Heather

Those short 'traveling' pieces are a pearler when they pop out and write themselves ....
Well done ...

The pigs are on both sides of the fence - they are/were pretty bad in the park. They have a regular baiting day when you take your own meat and the Government supplies the poison.....everyone knows about it and makes sure their dogs are chained up and their baits are counted and untaken ones retrieved the next day to try and keep it all as safe as possible. Unfortunately you have no control over crows who can scatter the baits and we were told that if a crow takes a poison bait it can spew it up whilst flying which means the bait could be anywhere. We lost Ralph Patrick our kelpie pup to a bait and that's the only way it could have happened and Khadizia my Pit Bull got killed by a pig, most of the farmers both sheep and orchadists have pig traps permanently set up, and they would be catching pigs all the time. The one that killed Khadizia was 108 kg and was knocking off about 10 lambs a night from our front paddock in the lambing season. Our neighbour eventually got him 2 days after Khadizia went missing with fresh tear marks on his ear and shoulder and he was absolutely positive that his dogs never got to him.

We had a big Irish Wolfhound x Staghorn that was our ultra smart pig dog - Samantha who weighed about 65 kg and old Buster our working Kelpie was not bad at it either - both having enough smarts to just bail the pig until we could get there to kill it - but sadly Khadizia was a city dog and knew squat about pigs...she would have been easy pickings. We think she was trying to protect little Ralph.

That was a particularly bad year midway through the drought but it dropped our lambing from 98% to about 32%. Just another nail in the coffin.

Ross, I like you was astounded by 'the fence'.
After meetin' up with it up near Camerons Corner a few years back just had to include a section as part of Trek 3.
The following is an extract -

Then on to
Corner Country
where James Cameron made a claim,
where three states join together is where he made his name.
If you’ve not seen the
‘Dog Fence’
or walked along its length,
you haven’t been to anywhere, you have not had the strength.
Over five thousand kilometres from the
Great Australian Bight then to the Great Dividing Range,
mind - you’d have to walk all night
‘cause Dingos with their howling would not let you sleep.
Wild pigs with their curly tails
would be the company you’d keep.

(c). Rimeriter 2005.

Good one Ross. It's a subject with a lot of possibilities.

When I was at Bourke, I went on a drive way out past Wanaaring to a place on the dingo fence called Hamilton Gate. That's what it is..a gate through the fence. There is a house there in the middle of the never never and we spoke to the man living there. His job was maintainence of the fence. We drove east along the fence towards Hungerford and I remember looking back and seeing the fence going off into infinity over the undulating red soil country...and kicking myself because I left my camera at home !!

Hi Ross

Have only just read this. As well as the interesting subject I liked the rhyming pattern and the overall structure of the poem.

Regards, Jeff