Adventure in the steps of Henry Lawson, from Bourke on the Darling to Hungerford. Cross the plains of stations ridden by Will Ogilvie and Breaker Morant.
Experience the classic stories and poems written in the hey-day of the Bulletin, read ‘on location’ in the bush pubs, woolsheds and bush tracks that inspired them. Meet the locals and enjoy bush hospitality and great Outback scenery at the Back O’ Bourke.
The (almost) annual Poets Trek in Bourke takes place in September from the 27th - 29th.
More info on the website. poetstrek.com.au
see you then?
h
Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
-
Hully
Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
Yeah Marty, its a good thing.
You know, I never really looked into Australian poetry until I went on this trek - and I am a Bourke boy ! !
...But going on this trip made me realise how words BELONG in a landscape - they relate to each other....I wrote feverishly all the way around (and still do when I go 'treking') and have been writing 'bush poetry' ever since.
First poem (written in Central Park in Bourke after the initial 'scene setting' of the 1st trek I went on - 2003)
Central Park, Bourke
The park in Bourke where Lawson lay
The Union Call, the river bank
The tiny hut where once he lived,
The many hotels where he drank
Lawsons ghost awoke today
(or just rolled over and slept again)
his own words rolled across his bed
as modern men 'remembered when'
The park where Henry once had slept
Now grows graffiti and broken glass
We stood around a plastic bin
And waited for the trucks to pass
The words came not from Lawson’s tongue
But from a dog eared paperback
The page contained the days of old
The faithful speaker brought them back
The park now holds a monument
A tribute to his time outback
He told the stories of the day
And walked along the dusty track
He called to arms the working man
And nurtured the enquiring mind
In Bourke, he found Australia and
He understood the times that bind
The park where Lawson slept and dreamt
Of what this land would one day be
Still holds his hopes, words and dreams
And cultivates his memory
“men of Bourke the world is moving
and you’re moving with it too
and you live a little faster
than your fathers used to do
but although the bush was lonely
and the life was rather slow
don’t forget the vanished seasons
on the Darling years ago”
Next time I wander through that park
I’ll walk with a more careful step
Perhaps I’m walking on the spot
Where Lawson sleeps, or at least once slept
Perhaps I’m walking through the words
That Henry wrote, and wrote to last
And dreaming of a better time
The here and now, the future 'past'
You know, I never really looked into Australian poetry until I went on this trek - and I am a Bourke boy ! !
...But going on this trip made me realise how words BELONG in a landscape - they relate to each other....I wrote feverishly all the way around (and still do when I go 'treking') and have been writing 'bush poetry' ever since.
First poem (written in Central Park in Bourke after the initial 'scene setting' of the 1st trek I went on - 2003)
Central Park, Bourke
The park in Bourke where Lawson lay
The Union Call, the river bank
The tiny hut where once he lived,
The many hotels where he drank
Lawsons ghost awoke today
(or just rolled over and slept again)
his own words rolled across his bed
as modern men 'remembered when'
The park where Henry once had slept
Now grows graffiti and broken glass
We stood around a plastic bin
And waited for the trucks to pass
The words came not from Lawson’s tongue
But from a dog eared paperback
The page contained the days of old
The faithful speaker brought them back
The park now holds a monument
A tribute to his time outback
He told the stories of the day
And walked along the dusty track
He called to arms the working man
And nurtured the enquiring mind
In Bourke, he found Australia and
He understood the times that bind
The park where Lawson slept and dreamt
Of what this land would one day be
Still holds his hopes, words and dreams
And cultivates his memory
“men of Bourke the world is moving
and you’re moving with it too
and you live a little faster
than your fathers used to do
but although the bush was lonely
and the life was rather slow
don’t forget the vanished seasons
on the Darling years ago”
Next time I wander through that park
I’ll walk with a more careful step
Perhaps I’m walking on the spot
Where Lawson sleeps, or at least once slept
Perhaps I’m walking through the words
That Henry wrote, and wrote to last
And dreaming of a better time
The here and now, the future 'past'
-
Rimeriter
Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
Central Park, Bourke -
Bloody marvellous mate.
Your marvellous rhyme
it proves to me
there is much in Bourke
I've yet to see.
"Thank you"
Jim.
Bloody marvellous mate.
Your marvellous rhyme
it proves to me
there is much in Bourke
I've yet to see.
"Thank you"
Jim.
-
Rimeriter
Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
Because of my current inability, a rello in Mackay mailed me a book which arrived yesterday, to read whilst I am stationary..
A new publication titled - Waltzing Matilda : the Secret History of Australia's Favourite Song by Dennis O'keefe. Allen & Unwin 2012.
Some of the cover lettering is in gold. The contents are in fact GOLD.
He is probably well known to ABPAers, but new to me.
I have gulped down through to page 54 so far. Obviously it will need a second and probably a third reading - in due course.
The information revealed in prologue, preface and first chapter is marvellous, which includes references to Bourke and his time there.
Hopefully I can join the next years trek.
Jim.
A new publication titled - Waltzing Matilda : the Secret History of Australia's Favourite Song by Dennis O'keefe. Allen & Unwin 2012.
Some of the cover lettering is in gold. The contents are in fact GOLD.
He is probably well known to ABPAers, but new to me.
I have gulped down through to page 54 so far. Obviously it will need a second and probably a third reading - in due course.
The information revealed in prologue, preface and first chapter is marvellous, which includes references to Bourke and his time there.
Hopefully I can join the next years trek.
Jim.
-
Hully
Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
Wow Jim - will keep an eye out for that - I know Dennis.
Hope to see you next year.
h
Hope to see you next year.
h
-
manfredvijars
Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
The most important trek in Australian literary history was Lawson's three week trek from Bourke to Hungerford in 1892. Lawson was sent to Bourke by Archibald, no doubt to stir up controversy and nurture debate in what was the 'true' view of the bush of the time?
Was it the romantic view of Paterson and his ilk?
Or was Lawson's view of a raw harsh and unforgiving land closer to the mark?
This was an important trek for Lawson because in his subsequent writings Lawson created his style as dryly laconic, passionately egalitarian and deeply humane. ... In the process, I believe he also defined Australians.
I'm looking forward to participating in the Poets Trek on the 27th 28th 29th September to ...
go to Bourke and seek the places where old Henry tramped
and maybe see what Henry saw and camp where Henry camped.
----------------------------
In The City Bushman, Lawson responds to Paterson's poem, In Defense of the Bush, quoting a number of phrases, and criticising each in turn. It was first published in The Bulletin on 6 August 1892, under the title "In Answer to "Banjo", and Otherwise".
The City Bushman
1892 Henry Lawson
It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went,
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent;
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush;
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade is not',
And you mentioned it was dusty -- `all was dry and all was hot'.
True, the bush `hath moods and changes' -- and the bushman hath 'em, too,
For he's not a poet's dummy -- he's a man, the same as you;
But his back is growing rounder -- slaving for the absentee --
And his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be.
For we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet
Should have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street;
And, in short, we think the bushman's being driven to the wall,
And it's doubtful if his spirit will be `loyal thro' it all'.
Though the bush has been romantic and it's nice to sing about,
There's a lot of patriotism that the land could do without --
Sort of BRITISH WORKMAN nonsense that shall perish in the scorn
Of the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn,
Of the struggling western farmers who have little time for rest,
And are ruined on selections in the sheep-infested West;
Droving songs are very pretty, but they merit little thanks
From the people of a country in possession of the Banks.
And the `rise and fall of seasons' suits the rise and fall of rhyme,
But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time;
For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry,
Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky --
Then it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night
Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight.
It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best,
But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the West;
There are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring,
There are broiling Junes, and summers when it rains like anything.
In the bush my ears were opened to the singing of the bird,
But the `carol of the magpie' was a thing I never heard.
Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty, it is true,
But I only heard him asking, `Who the blanky blank are you?'
And the bell-bird in the ranges -- but his `silver chime' is harsh
When it's heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh.
Yes, I heard the shearers singing `William Riley', out of tune,
Saw 'em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon,
But the bushman isn't always `trapping brumbies in the night',
Nor is he for ever riding when `the morn is fresh and bright',
And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run --
And the camp-fire's `cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone;
We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days,
When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze,
Save the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn
Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn.
Then we had to wring our blueys which were rotting in the swags,
And we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags,
And we couldn't raise a chorus, for the toothache and the cramp,
While we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp.
Would you like to change with Clancy -- go a-droving? tell us true,
For we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you,
And be something in the city; but 'twould give your muse a shock
To be losing time and money through the foot-rot in the flock,
And you wouldn't mind the beauties underneath the starry dome
If you had a wife and children and a lot of bills at home.
Did you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky-black,
And it rained, and icy water trickled gently down your back
Till your saddle-weary backbone fell a-aching to the roots
And you almost felt the croaking of the bull-frog in your boots --
Sit and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock and cough
Till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off?
Did you fight the drought and pleuro when the `seasons' were asleep,
Felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep,
Drinking mud instead of water -- climbing trees and lopping boughs
For the broken-hearted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows?
Do you think the bush was better in the `good old droving days',
When the squatter ruled supremely as the king of western ways,
When you got a slip of paper for the little you could earn,
But were forced to take provisions from the station in return --
When you couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run,
For the squatter wouldn't let you -- and your work was never done;
When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn
While you `rose up Willy Riley' -- in the days ere you were born?
Ah! we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like
Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike.
Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest
Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over-written West?
Where the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum
Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come;
Where the scalper -- never troubled by the `war-whoop of the push' --
Has a quiet little billet -- breeding rabbits in the bush;
Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw,
And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law;
Where the labour-agitator -- when the shearers rise in might --
Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right;
Where the squatter makes his fortune, and `the seasons rise and fall',
And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all;
Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest
Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West.
And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there,
But it doesn't seem to pay you like the `squalid street and square'.
Pray inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse,
Of the awful `city urchin who would greet you with a curse'.
There are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat,
And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat.
Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage?
Did you hear the gods in chorus when `Ri-tooral' held the stage?
Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice
When he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce?
Do the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars
When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars?
You've a down on `trams and buses', or the `roar' of 'em, you said,
And the `filthy, dirty attic', where you never toiled for bread.
(And about that self-same attic -- Lord! wherever have you been?
For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.)
But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push,
And the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush.
. . . . .
You'll admit that Up-the Country, more especially in drought,
Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about,
Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides
In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides;
Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees
And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees!
Long to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand
And to feel once more a little like a native of the land.
And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes
Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times.
Let us go together droving, and returning, if we live,
Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.
---
Was it the romantic view of Paterson and his ilk?
Or was Lawson's view of a raw harsh and unforgiving land closer to the mark?
This was an important trek for Lawson because in his subsequent writings Lawson created his style as dryly laconic, passionately egalitarian and deeply humane. ... In the process, I believe he also defined Australians.
I'm looking forward to participating in the Poets Trek on the 27th 28th 29th September to ...
go to Bourke and seek the places where old Henry tramped
and maybe see what Henry saw and camp where Henry camped.
----------------------------
In The City Bushman, Lawson responds to Paterson's poem, In Defense of the Bush, quoting a number of phrases, and criticising each in turn. It was first published in The Bulletin on 6 August 1892, under the title "In Answer to "Banjo", and Otherwise".
The City Bushman
1892 Henry Lawson
It was pleasant up the country, City Bushman, where you went,
For you sought the greener patches and you travelled like a gent;
And you curse the trams and buses and the turmoil and the push,
Though you know the squalid city needn't keep you from the bush;
But we lately heard you singing of the `plains where shade is not',
And you mentioned it was dusty -- `all was dry and all was hot'.
True, the bush `hath moods and changes' -- and the bushman hath 'em, too,
For he's not a poet's dummy -- he's a man, the same as you;
But his back is growing rounder -- slaving for the absentee --
And his toiling wife is thinner than a country wife should be.
For we noticed that the faces of the folks we chanced to meet
Should have made a greater contrast to the faces in the street;
And, in short, we think the bushman's being driven to the wall,
And it's doubtful if his spirit will be `loyal thro' it all'.
Though the bush has been romantic and it's nice to sing about,
There's a lot of patriotism that the land could do without --
Sort of BRITISH WORKMAN nonsense that shall perish in the scorn
Of the drover who is driven and the shearer who is shorn,
Of the struggling western farmers who have little time for rest,
And are ruined on selections in the sheep-infested West;
Droving songs are very pretty, but they merit little thanks
From the people of a country in possession of the Banks.
And the `rise and fall of seasons' suits the rise and fall of rhyme,
But we know that western seasons do not run on schedule time;
For the drought will go on drying while there's anything to dry,
Then it rains until you'd fancy it would bleach the sunny sky --
Then it pelters out of reason, for the downpour day and night
Nearly sweeps the population to the Great Australian Bight.
It is up in Northern Queensland that the seasons do their best,
But it's doubtful if you ever saw a season in the West;
There are years without an autumn or a winter or a spring,
There are broiling Junes, and summers when it rains like anything.
In the bush my ears were opened to the singing of the bird,
But the `carol of the magpie' was a thing I never heard.
Once the beggar roused my slumbers in a shanty, it is true,
But I only heard him asking, `Who the blanky blank are you?'
And the bell-bird in the ranges -- but his `silver chime' is harsh
When it's heard beside the solo of the curlew in the marsh.
Yes, I heard the shearers singing `William Riley', out of tune,
Saw 'em fighting round a shanty on a Sunday afternoon,
But the bushman isn't always `trapping brumbies in the night',
Nor is he for ever riding when `the morn is fresh and bright',
And he isn't always singing in the humpies on the run --
And the camp-fire's `cheery blazes' are a trifle overdone;
We have grumbled with the bushmen round the fire on rainy days,
When the smoke would blind a bullock and there wasn't any blaze,
Save the blazes of our language, for we cursed the fire in turn
Till the atmosphere was heated and the wood began to burn.
Then we had to wring our blueys which were rotting in the swags,
And we saw the sugar leaking through the bottoms of the bags,
And we couldn't raise a chorus, for the toothache and the cramp,
While we spent the hours of darkness draining puddles round the camp.
Would you like to change with Clancy -- go a-droving? tell us true,
For we rather think that Clancy would be glad to change with you,
And be something in the city; but 'twould give your muse a shock
To be losing time and money through the foot-rot in the flock,
And you wouldn't mind the beauties underneath the starry dome
If you had a wife and children and a lot of bills at home.
Did you ever guard the cattle when the night was inky-black,
And it rained, and icy water trickled gently down your back
Till your saddle-weary backbone fell a-aching to the roots
And you almost felt the croaking of the bull-frog in your boots --
Sit and shiver in the saddle, curse the restless stock and cough
Till a squatter's irate dummy cantered up to warn you off?
Did you fight the drought and pleuro when the `seasons' were asleep,
Felling sheoaks all the morning for a flock of starving sheep,
Drinking mud instead of water -- climbing trees and lopping boughs
For the broken-hearted bullocks and the dry and dusty cows?
Do you think the bush was better in the `good old droving days',
When the squatter ruled supremely as the king of western ways,
When you got a slip of paper for the little you could earn,
But were forced to take provisions from the station in return --
When you couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run,
For the squatter wouldn't let you -- and your work was never done;
When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn
While you `rose up Willy Riley' -- in the days ere you were born?
Ah! we read about the drovers and the shearers and the like
Till we wonder why such happy and romantic fellows strike.
Don't you fancy that the poets ought to give the bush a rest
Ere they raise a just rebellion in the over-written West?
Where the simple-minded bushman gets a meal and bed and rum
Just by riding round reporting phantom flocks that never come;
Where the scalper -- never troubled by the `war-whoop of the push' --
Has a quiet little billet -- breeding rabbits in the bush;
Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw,
And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law;
Where the labour-agitator -- when the shearers rise in might --
Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right;
Where the squatter makes his fortune, and `the seasons rise and fall',
And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all;
Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest
Never reach the Eldorado of the poets of the West.
And you think the bush is purer and that life is better there,
But it doesn't seem to pay you like the `squalid street and square'.
Pray inform us, City Bushman, where you read, in prose or verse,
Of the awful `city urchin who would greet you with a curse'.
There are golden hearts in gutters, though their owners lack the fat,
And we'll back a teamster's offspring to outswear a city brat.
Do you think we're never jolly where the trams and buses rage?
Did you hear the gods in chorus when `Ri-tooral' held the stage?
Did you catch a ring of sorrow in the city urchin's voice
When he yelled for Billy Elton, when he thumped the floor for Royce?
Do the bushmen, down on pleasure, miss the everlasting stars
When they drink and flirt and so on in the glow of private bars?
You've a down on `trams and buses', or the `roar' of 'em, you said,
And the `filthy, dirty attic', where you never toiled for bread.
(And about that self-same attic -- Lord! wherever have you been?
For the struggling needlewoman mostly keeps her attic clean.)
But you'll find it very jolly with the cuff-and-collar push,
And the city seems to suit you, while you rave about the bush.
. . . . .
You'll admit that Up-the Country, more especially in drought,
Isn't quite the Eldorado that the poets rave about,
Yet at times we long to gallop where the reckless bushman rides
In the wake of startled brumbies that are flying for their hides;
Long to feel the saddle tremble once again between our knees
And to hear the stockwhips rattle just like rifles in the trees!
Long to feel the bridle-leather tugging strongly in the hand
And to feel once more a little like a native of the land.
And the ring of bitter feeling in the jingling of our rhymes
Isn't suited to the country nor the spirit of the times.
Let us go together droving, and returning, if we live,
Try to understand each other while we reckon up the div.
---
-
Neville Briggs
- Posts: 6946
- Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:08 pm
- Location: Here
Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
When you get to Hungerford Manfred, it's in the middle of NOWHERE.
At the end of a red dirt road, traversing endless flat mulga and gidgee plains. Plenty of wildlife to keep you company; kangaroos, emus, wild pigs and feral goats.
The last time that I was there, Hungerford consisted of a very small pub left over from Henry Lawson's day, a small police station, and I think a couple of sheds, that's about it.
The local cop ( Qld police ) was like the sheriff of Deadwood, in blue jeans, a silver gun on his hip and a rifle hanging on the wall.
But a fine man really. 
The "hotel room" I stayed in, opened out onto the street. Actually to get to the room, you had to leave the bar, walk out onto the street and around to the room because there were too many bushes over the verandah. It had a door like a shed door, of planks with diagonal braces. The floor had lino laid on the packed earth and the bed was an antique iron thing. The bathroom was a shed out in the bushes somewhere with an old bath to stand in while you sluiced yourself with sulphurous bore water. And the toilet was off in another part of the bushes, it was just a big hole in the ground under the seat.
If it's still like that Mannie, you will see it as Henry saw it. Have fun
The Hungerford pub served quite a nice meal. My mate and I asked for a bottle of wine with our meal and the publican burst into laughter. He dredged from the bottom of the fridge his only bottle of wine, some mysterious white wine that had been put out for a Rotary Club event of indeterminate ages ago and said " If you can drink that you can have it " We took it. It wasn't bad, if you like lemon juice mixed with metho for a drink.
Well ! it was all you could get.
I heard a story about Henry Lawson at Hungerford pub. That Henry was going to skip without paying the bill, so Henry offered to repair the publican's boots and did the repair plus putting tacks through the soles in the wrong place, so that when Henry took off without paying, the publican couldn't run to catch him because Henry's sabotaging tacks were sticking in the publican's feet preventing an effective pursuit.
Dunno if it's a true story, a bit of a stretch, but it sounds like Henry.
At the end of a red dirt road, traversing endless flat mulga and gidgee plains. Plenty of wildlife to keep you company; kangaroos, emus, wild pigs and feral goats.
The last time that I was there, Hungerford consisted of a very small pub left over from Henry Lawson's day, a small police station, and I think a couple of sheds, that's about it.
The local cop ( Qld police ) was like the sheriff of Deadwood, in blue jeans, a silver gun on his hip and a rifle hanging on the wall.
But a fine man really. The "hotel room" I stayed in, opened out onto the street. Actually to get to the room, you had to leave the bar, walk out onto the street and around to the room because there were too many bushes over the verandah. It had a door like a shed door, of planks with diagonal braces. The floor had lino laid on the packed earth and the bed was an antique iron thing. The bathroom was a shed out in the bushes somewhere with an old bath to stand in while you sluiced yourself with sulphurous bore water. And the toilet was off in another part of the bushes, it was just a big hole in the ground under the seat.
If it's still like that Mannie, you will see it as Henry saw it. Have fun
The Hungerford pub served quite a nice meal. My mate and I asked for a bottle of wine with our meal and the publican burst into laughter. He dredged from the bottom of the fridge his only bottle of wine, some mysterious white wine that had been put out for a Rotary Club event of indeterminate ages ago and said " If you can drink that you can have it " We took it. It wasn't bad, if you like lemon juice mixed with metho for a drink.
Well ! it was all you could get.
I heard a story about Henry Lawson at Hungerford pub. That Henry was going to skip without paying the bill, so Henry offered to repair the publican's boots and did the repair plus putting tacks through the soles in the wrong place, so that when Henry took off without paying, the publican couldn't run to catch him because Henry's sabotaging tacks were sticking in the publican's feet preventing an effective pursuit.
Dunno if it's a true story, a bit of a stretch, but it sounds like Henry.
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.
-
manfredvijars
Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
Thanks for that Nev. I've never been there so I'm looking forward to it.
That's quite a story about the 'repair job'. I'd love it to be true and given the 'sour yeast' they were served it is possible (maybe Hully can elaborate?) ...
(exerpt - Lawson, "Hungerford")
Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New South Wales, and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough, both the pubs are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it--we had asked for English ale.
The post office is in New South Wales, and the police-barracks in Bananaland. The police cannot do anything if there's a row going on across the street in New South Wales, except to send to Brisbane and have an extradition warrant applied for; and they don't do much if there's a row in Queensland. Most of the rows are across the border, where the pubs are.
We saw one of the storekeepers give a dead-beat swagman five shillings' worth of rations to take him on into Queensland. The storekeepers often do this, and put it down on the loss side of their books. I hope the recording angel listens, and puts it down on the right side of his book.---
That's quite a story about the 'repair job'. I'd love it to be true and given the 'sour yeast' they were served it is possible (maybe Hully can elaborate?) ...
(exerpt - Lawson, "Hungerford")
Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New South Wales, and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough, both the pubs are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it--we had asked for English ale.
The post office is in New South Wales, and the police-barracks in Bananaland. The police cannot do anything if there's a row going on across the street in New South Wales, except to send to Brisbane and have an extradition warrant applied for; and they don't do much if there's a row in Queensland. Most of the rows are across the border, where the pubs are.
We saw one of the storekeepers give a dead-beat swagman five shillings' worth of rations to take him on into Queensland. The storekeepers often do this, and put it down on the loss side of their books. I hope the recording angel listens, and puts it down on the right side of his book.---
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Zondrae
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Re: Poets Trek 27th 28th 29th September
can I be naive and ask..
Is this a horse riding trek, a foot (walking) trek, do you have to drive 4x4 of your own or is it by coach or other transport? (or have I been too lazy to read it properly?).
Is this a horse riding trek, a foot (walking) trek, do you have to drive 4x4 of your own or is it by coach or other transport? (or have I been too lazy to read it properly?).
Zondrae King
a woman of words
a woman of words