Phil, Barb, Rita, Ed, Nancy and Tony on the banks of the Staaten. Rita is doing a great job of hiding her apprehension at having corned beef for dinner.
And the bush has friends to meet him and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars
And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
Sunlit plains we had indeed as we travelled across the well-graded road north and west from Chillagoe. And the bush sent many furred and feathered friends to meet us. For Tony and I, the personal vision splendid was of the feathered ones.
Yellow-tail cockatoos as well as the red-tail flocked and fluttered along the way with eagles, hawks, parrots, jabiru, brolgas and other heron. Then a brilliant moment etched itself into our memories.
A red-tail cockatoo swept from the right and a yellow-tail from the left to soar in front of Isabel’s windscreen. Our vision splendid was of cockatoo wings extended in a feathered escort of black, yellow and red.
Banjo Paterson’s stirring poem about Clancy of the Overflow often springs to mind when you roam the byways of our big country. We all know that bush life was never as romantically bucolic as painted by Banjo but something in those four lines captures the essence of Australia beyond the artifice of cities and towns.
Each letter of the lines was cast in bronze and set on the walls of the foyer of the Sydney Morning Herald’s palatial high-rise at Darling Harbour. Banjo and Henry Lawson were regular subscribers to The Bulletin, that fine magazine published by Fairfax but sent to the grave by the internet.
I am saddened it is no longer fashionable for Australian children to learn of the great explorers, pioneers, entrepreneurs and adventurers who carved the foundations for modern Australia. I understand some of the literary works revered by earlier generations might be dismissive or paternalistic in references to our indigenous people. I understand too that the old bards might not fit easily with the teachings of devotees of multiculturalism.
If we are at pains to preserve Aboriginal heritage, however, and to be inclusive of the cultures of our newer immigrants, it should not be done by burying Banjo.
Rita and Ed, our US travelling companions, said sadly similar educational philosophies were erasing American history and folklore from their nation’s classrooms. Kiwis are also having much of the last 200 years pushed out of their schools.
Such was the campfire talk, briefly, at Staaten River, where Rita was a little more concerned with what we were cooking for dinner. Banjo would have approved. Corned beef. She had not eaten corned beef since the days of her childhood when we mother had boiled the meat until it was grey and tasteless. Cabbage had the same treatment. I recalled my grandmother crucifying corned beef and cabbage with equal enthusiasm.
Rita kept her misgivings to herself until we ate and she pronounced herself delighted with the salt beef roasted in a camp oven on the open fire.
Barb and Phil, who made up our party, had recommThe bush sends friends to meet him and their friendly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars
And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
Sunlit plains we had indeed as we travelled across the well-graded road north and west from Chillagoe. And the bush sent many furred and feathered friends to meet us. For Tony and I, the personal vision splendid was of the feathered ones.
Yellow-tail cockatoos as well as the red-tail flocked and fluttered along the way with eagles, hawks, parrots, jabiru, brolgas and other heron. Then a brilliant moment etched itself into our memories.
A red-tail cockatoo swept from the right and a yellow-tail from the left to soar in front of Isabel’s windscreen. Our vision splendid was of cockatoo wings extended in a feathered escort of black, yellow and red.
Banjo Paterson’s stirring poem about Clancy of the Overflow often springs to mind when you roam the byways of our big country. We all know that bush life was never as romantically bucolic as painted by Banjo but something in those four lines captures the essence of Australia beyond the artifice of cities and towns.
Each letter of the lines was cast in bronze and set on the walls of the foyer of the Sydney Morning Herald’s palatial high-rise at Darling Harbour. Banjo and Henry Lawson were regular subscribers to The Bulletin, that fine magazine published by Fairfax but sent to the grave by the internet.
I am saddened it is no longer fashionable for Australian children to learn of the great explorers, pioneers, entrepreneurs and adventurers who carved the foundations for modern Australia. I understand some of the literary works revered by earlier generations might be dismissive or paternalistic in references to our indigenous people. I understand too that the old bards might not fit easily with the teachings of devotees of multiculturalism.
If we are at pains to preserve Aboriginal heritage, however, and to be inclusive of the cultures of our newer immigrants, it should not be done by burying Banjo.
Rita and Ed, our US travelling companions, said sadly similar educational philosophies were erasing American history and folklore from their nation’s classrooms. Kiwis are also having much of the last 200 years pushed out of their schools.
Such was the campfire talk, briefly, at Staaten River, where Rita was a little more concerned with what we were cooking for dinner. Banjo would have approved. Corned beef. She had not eaten corned beef since the days of her childhood when we mother had boiled the meat until it was grey and tasteless. Cabbage had the same treatment. I recalled my grandmother crucifying corned beef and cabbage with equal enthusiasm.
Rita kept her misgivings to herself until we ate and she pronounced herself delighted with the salt beef roasted in a camp oven on the open fire.
Barb and Phil, who made up our party, had recommended the camp oven roast after tasting it cooked in that style by son-in-law Ian and grandson Ro. Our declarations of its wonders might have been influence by beer and wine but a triumph it was.
Next morning after Ed spotted a couple of crocodile eyes in the Staaten we headed for Normanton. The road wasn’t too bad but deteriorated after we entered the Shire of Carpentaria, where they apparently do not have enough money for graders because they spend so much on signs saying “Rough Surface”.
And the bush has friends to meet him and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars
And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
Sunlit plains we had indeed as we travelled across the well-graded road north and west from Chillagoe. And the bush sent many furred and feathered friends to meet us. For Tony and I, the personal vision splendid was of the feathered ones.
Yellow-tail cockatoos as well as the red-tail flocked and fluttered along the way with eagles, hawks, parrots, jabiru, brolgas and other heron. Then a brilliant moment etched itself into our memories.
A red-tail cockatoo swept from the right and a yellow-tail from the left to soar in front of Isabel’s windscreen. Our vision splendid was of cockatoo wings extended in a feathered escort of black, yellow and red.
Banjo Paterson’s stirring poem about Clancy of the Overflow often springs to mind when you roam the byways of our big country. We all know that bush life was never as romantically bucolic as painted by Banjo but something in those four lines captures the essence of Australia beyond the artifice of cities and towns.
Each letter of the lines was cast in bronze and set on the walls of the foyer of the Sydney Morning Herald’s palatial high-rise at Darling Harbour. Banjo and Henry Lawson were regular subscribers to The Bulletin, that fine magazine published by Fairfax but sent to the grave by the internet.
I am saddened it is no longer fashionable for Australian children to learn of the great explorers, pioneers, entrepreneurs and adventurers who carved the foundations for modern Australia. I understand some of the literary works revered by earlier generations might be dismissive or paternalistic in references to our indigenous people. I understand too that the old bards might not fit easily with the teachings of devotees of multiculturalism.
If we are at pains to preserve Aboriginal heritage, however, and to be inclusive of the cultures of our newer immigrants, it should not be done by burying Banjo.
Rita and Ed, our US travelling companions, said sadly similar educational philosophies were erasing American history and folklore from their nation’s classrooms. Kiwis are also having much of the last 200 years pushed out of their schools.
Such was the campfire talk, briefly, at Staaten River, where Rita was a little more concerned with what we were cooking for dinner. Banjo would have approved. Corned beef. She had not eaten corned beef since the days of her childhood when we mother had boiled the meat until it was grey and tasteless. Cabbage had the same treatment. I recalled my grandmother crucifying corned beef and cabbage with equal enthusiasm.
Rita kept her misgivings to herself until we ate and she pronounced herself delighted with the salt beef roasted in a camp oven on the open fire.
Barb and Phil, who made up our party, had recommThe bush sends friends to meet him and their friendly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars
And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
Sunlit plains we had indeed as we travelled across the well-graded road north and west from Chillagoe. And the bush sent many furred and feathered friends to meet us. For Tony and I, the personal vision splendid was of the feathered ones.
Yellow-tail cockatoos as well as the red-tail flocked and fluttered along the way with eagles, hawks, parrots, jabiru, brolgas and other heron. Then a brilliant moment etched itself into our memories.
A red-tail cockatoo swept from the right and a yellow-tail from the left to soar in front of Isabel’s windscreen. Our vision splendid was of cockatoo wings extended in a feathered escort of black, yellow and red.
Banjo Paterson’s stirring poem about Clancy of the Overflow often springs to mind when you roam the byways of our big country. We all know that bush life was never as romantically bucolic as painted by Banjo but something in those four lines captures the essence of Australia beyond the artifice of cities and towns.
Each letter of the lines was cast in bronze and set on the walls of the foyer of the Sydney Morning Herald’s palatial high-rise at Darling Harbour. Banjo and Henry Lawson were regular subscribers to The Bulletin, that fine magazine published by Fairfax but sent to the grave by the internet.
I am saddened it is no longer fashionable for Australian children to learn of the great explorers, pioneers, entrepreneurs and adventurers who carved the foundations for modern Australia. I understand some of the literary works revered by earlier generations might be dismissive or paternalistic in references to our indigenous people. I understand too that the old bards might not fit easily with the teachings of devotees of multiculturalism.
If we are at pains to preserve Aboriginal heritage, however, and to be inclusive of the cultures of our newer immigrants, it should not be done by burying Banjo.
Rita and Ed, our US travelling companions, said sadly similar educational philosophies were erasing American history and folklore from their nation’s classrooms. Kiwis are also having much of the last 200 years pushed out of their schools.
Such was the campfire talk, briefly, at Staaten River, where Rita was a little more concerned with what we were cooking for dinner. Banjo would have approved. Corned beef. She had not eaten corned beef since the days of her childhood when we mother had boiled the meat until it was grey and tasteless. Cabbage had the same treatment. I recalled my grandmother crucifying corned beef and cabbage with equal enthusiasm.
Rita kept her misgivings to herself until we ate and she pronounced herself delighted with the salt beef roasted in a camp oven on the open fire.
Barb and Phil, who made up our party, had recommended the camp oven roast after tasting it cooked in that style by son-in-law Ian and grandson Ro. Our declarations of its wonders might have been influence by beer and wine but a triumph it was.
Next morning after Ed spotted a couple of crocodile eyes in the Staaten we headed for Normanton. The road wasn’t too bad but deteriorated after we entered the Shire of Carpentaria, where they apparently do not have enough money for graders because they spend so much on signs saying “Rough Surface”.