{"id":6,"date":"2015-01-25T03:56:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T03:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewallaby.net\/?page_id=6"},"modified":"2016-10-01T02:18:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T16:18:51","slug":"homepage","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewallaby.net\/","title":{"rendered":"What is This?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“On The Wallaby” – Slang for going from place to place (in search of work).<\/p>\n

This is simply a collection of my random experiences living in Australia – Liverpool, \u00a0Darwin, the Gold Coast and various places in between.<\/p>\n

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Life doesn\u2019t always work out\u00a0the way\u00a0you\u2019d like, and the world will continue to change whether you like it or not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m old school and often find myself bemused by the youth of today….<\/p>\n

\"MenAlCarcoar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ON THE WALLABY<\/strong> – Henry Lawson<\/p>\n

Now the tent poles are rotting, the camp fires are dead,
\nAnd the possums may gambol in trees overhead;
\nI am humping my bluey far out on the land,
\nAnd the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand:
\nI am out on the wallaby humping my drum,
\nAnd I came by the tracks where the sundowners come.<\/p>\n

It is nor’-west and west o’er the ranges and far
\nTo the plains where the cattle and sheep stations are,
\nWith the sky for my roof and the grass for my bunk,
\nAnd a calico bag for my damper and junk;
\nAnd scarcely a comrade my memory reveals,
\nSave the spiritless dingo in tow of my heels.<\/p>\n

But I think of the honest old light of my home
\nWhen the stars hang in clusters like lamps from the dome,
\nAnd I think of the hearth where the dark shadows fall,
\nWhen my camp fire is built on the widest of all;
\nBut I’m following Fate, for I know she knows best,
\nI follow, she leads, and it’s nor’-west by west.<\/p>\n

When my tent is all torn and my blankets are damp,
\nAnd the rising flood waters flow fast by the camp,
\nWhen the cold water rises in jets from the floor,
\nI lie in my bunk and I list to the roar,
\nAnd I think how to-morrow my footsteps will lag
\nWhen I tramp ‘neath the weight of a rain-sodden swag.<\/p>\n

Though the way of the swagman is mostly up-hill,
\nThere are joys to be found on the wallaby still.
\nWhen the day has gone by with its tramp or its toil,
\nAnd your camp-fire you light, and your billy you boil,
\nThere is comfort and peace in the bowl of your clay
\nOr the yarn of a mate who is tramping that way.<\/p>\n

But beware of the town — there is poison for years
\nIn the pleasure you find in the depths of long beers;
\nFor the bushman gets bushed in the streets of a town,
\nWhere he loses his friends when his cheque is knocked down;
\nHe is right till his pockets are empty, and then —
\nHe can hump his old bluey up country again.<\/p>\n

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