Kowmung Tributes

 

 

I'll sing you a song of the Kowmung,

A land where the steeps hit the sky,

A place where Joalah and Wonga

Live with the creeks ever nigh,

Where the myrtle trees line all the gullies

That fall from the heights of Mt Ti.

 

I'll sing you a song of a wild land,

A land spotted over with peaks,

With spires and sheerdowns and canyons,

Deep places the sun never seeks.

And the mists that rise up from the Pooken's

Quiet lair in the depths of the creeks.

 

The Kowmung's the land of the Trailer,

The Bushwalker and anyone who

Loves the rugged heart of our country

And appreciates his boots and his stew.

I'll take you all out to my Kowmung,

The land of the wild wallaroo.

 

I love the great depths of the Morong

That cuts its way sheer through the land,

The Gangerang Lords with their high tops,

Cloudmaker, Marooba Karoo,

The home of Stormbreaker and Strongleg,

Rip, Roar and Rumble and Ti Willa Too.

 

There are days when the great heat of summer

Will dry up the tongue in your mouth

You'll list' to the brass song of cicada

And pray for the breeze from the south,

You will travel along in December

The tracks of the Trailer and Scout.

 

Myles J Dunphy

c. 1932

from "Sing With the Wind""
Published by Envirobook 1989.

Traveller

Pausing in pools beneath wedge-tail bluffs

Under greywacke overhangs,

he eases to rest in the cavernous realm

of the water dragon.

Motionless. Still.

But is never really still,

for even at night the eels in his belly

wriggle like ripples through his dreams.

Nor is he ever hungry,

for he is always nibbling away

at a mountain or two.

 

Peering down the reach

he sees a bend, a point where looms

the limit of sight and certainty,

beyond which he must travel,

beyond which is his future,

beyond which is the sea.

 

The Traveller flows on...

 

Colin Gibson, from "A Wild Blue Wander" published by Greenaissance 2000.

 

 

 

 

While the mob's in the boozer, I've done Arethusa

And Claustral and Thunder as well,

I've scrub bashed up Kookem when rangers weren't looken',

And many more things I could tell,

My "H" frame has oft been my pillow,

The bracken has oft been my bed,

But sooner than part from the Kowmung,

I think I would sooner be dead.

 

Chorus: I'm a walker, I'm a walker, too-roo-ra-li-ay,

I get all my pleasures the scrub-bashing way,

For though I'm a wage slave on Monday,

I'm a freeman all Saturday -- Sunday.

 

There's a pleasure in thrashing uphill and ear bashing,

Of all the tough trips that you know.

There's even a measure of some kind of pleasure

Wading up to your eyeballs in snow.

I've stood on the top of Mt Morgan

And seen all the valleys outspread,

But sooner than part from the Kowmung

I think I would rather be dead.

 

(chorus)

 

The day was just ending as I was descending

To Jooriland down Bonnum Pic,

When a voice cried "Hey you!" in the way rangers do

(It’s a manner that makes you feel sick)

The things that he said were unpleasant,

In the teeth of his fury I said

That sooner than part from the Kowmung

I think I would rather be dead.

 

(chorus)

 

He raged "You bushwalkers are pollutin' stored waters!

Well I thought but still couldn't see

And so I rated "Are cows constipated?

If they're here, why not little me?"

He cried "Ah this land is the Water Board's"

At that I stood shaking my head,

If they think they've sole rights to the Kowmung

They oughter be bloody well dead.

 

(chorus)

 

I once loved a maid, a spot-welder by trade

She was fair as the Kowmung in bloom

In the blue of her eyes I could see mountain skies

And I loved her from April to June

On the day that we would have been married

I went for a bum walk instead,

For sooner than part from the Kowmung

I think I would rather be dead.

 

(chorus)

 

So I’ll walk where I will over mountain and hill

And I’ll camp where the bracken is deep

I belong to the Kowmung, the wild rolling Kowmung

Where ridges rise rugged and steep

I have seen lyre birds in the gullies

And the eagle swing high overhead

And sooner than part from the Kowmung

I think I would rather be dead.

 

(chorus)

 

        Ted Hartley, "Kameruka"

        December 1964,

from "Sing With the Wind"
Envirobook 1989