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Published: November 8th 2006
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Kynuna Pub
Where Waltzing Matilda was first performed Travelling north from Longreach, we are moving into Waltzing Matilda country. The unofficial Australian national anthem, this song has been heard around the world, yet few people are aware that it is based on actual events.
Winton (pop. 1140) is the next main town on the road north and claims to be the place where Waltzing Matilda was written although there is some doubt about this (see below). It is also the town where Qantas opened its first office, despite Longreach's claim to be the home of Qantas.
Even though the Waltzing Matilda Centre in the main street offered audio-visual displays and an art gallery, we thought it was overpriced so had a cup of coffee and left without going in. We had also heard some bad stories about the town caravan park so decided to travel further on to Kynuna.
Kynuna (pop. 18) is one of the undiscovered gems of the Queensland outback. There are two camping areas - behind the roadhouse and behind the pub. We chose the pub (surprise, surprise!). It was the first place where we stayed where we couldn't hook up to electricity so we really were camping. There were hot showers though
Brolga
These birds are famous for their dancing. It was originally thought to be a mating ritual but more recently the thinking is that they do it just for fun. We did see them dancing but - as usual - I didn't have the camera. and the food was good. The barmaids were an English girl who had come to work for a week - three months previously - and a girl from Korea who was astounded that I could speak with her in Korean, even though it was only a few words. Guess there aren't too many Korean speakers in Australia.
The Blue Heeler is the place where Waltzing Matilda was first performed.
Andrew Barton Paterson is remembered nowadays as the author of bush ballads such as
Waltzing Matilda,
The man from Snowy River and
Clancy of the Overflow but in reality he was a Sydney lawyer. He wrote articles for
The Bulletin, a popular journal of the time, using the pseudonym "The Banjo", which was the name of a racehorse his father owned. Thus his nickname "Banjo" Paterson.
He came to Queensland during the 1894 shearers strike to visit his long-time fiancee, Sarah Riley, who lived in Winton. One of Sarah's friends was Christina MacPherson whose father owned Dagworth Station, a sheep farm about 150kms from Winton. The pair were invited to spend Christmas with the MacPhersons at Dagworth.
While there, Patterson heard the story of "Frenchy" Hoffmeister, a
shearer who had taken part in burning down a shearing shed on the property and had later been found dead - apparently a suicide - at a nearby camp. (By the way, "Frenchy" was German, just like red-haired people are called "bluey". It's an Australian thing!)
He also heard the story of a "swaggie" (a tramp, for non-Australians) who had been found dead at Combo Waterhole which was between the station and Kynuna.
One evening, after dinner, Christina played a tune she had heard while living in Victoria and Patterson made up some words to fit the tune based on a combination of Frenchy's story and the swaggies death. Thus was born Waltzing Matilda.
When the strike was over, MacPherson and the shearers met to celebrate at the Kynuna Hotel and Waltzing Matilda was performed in public for the first time that evening.
Paterson sold the rights to the song in 1900 and it has gone through several versions since then, including a version by Marie Cowan which was used to advertise Billy Tea! You can hear the original version
here. It's quite different to what you will hear sung today. (BTW, it takes about 1
min to download on a broadband connection.)
From Kynuna, the road continues on to McKinlay, a little place in the middle of nowhere (pop. 30) famous for the Walkabout Creek hotel where part of the film
Crocodile Dundee was filmed. The Cannington mine, about 80km south of the town, is the world's largest single mine producer of silver.
We only stopped at Cloncurry for lunch, anticipating that we would stay longer on the way back from Mt. Isa, which involved a deviation from the road north to the Gulf. As we ate our salad rolls in a local park, we discovered that the local bird life is totally dominated by whistling kites. While these birds are common all through northern Queensland, we had not seen them in such dense concentrations before. From here on, they were the predominant form of bird life.
The country around Mt Isa is markedly different from the savannah we have been travelling through for the last few days. It is rocky, barren and stark. Every few kilometres unusual stone formations - known as Jump-ups - rise up out of the ground. They remind me of photos I have seen of Arizona. I
Mckinlay Pub
Crocodile Dundee was filmed here didn't expect to see them in Australia.
Mt Isa itself was a disappointment. Its sole reason for existence is the huge Mt Isa mine - the world's largest producer of copper, silver, lead and zinc - so I shouldn't have been surprised that it was smelly, noisy and polluted. It is such a contrast with the rest of the outback environment that it is something of a slap in the face. That said, the people we met here were welcoming and friendly. It was also a relief to find a Health Food shop so we could stock up before the next part of the journey.
From Mt Isa, the road to Lake Moondarra is a 4-lane highway. The speed limit is 60kph. I commented to Sylvia that it was a ridiculous limit for such a good road which had virtually no traffic on it. When we got back to Budgewoi, there was an infringement notice saying I had exceeded the limit by 12kph. I had been caught, by a hidden radar camera, travelling at 72kph. Bugger! My first speeding fine in 40 years of driving.
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