(Winton, Queensland, Australia)

A Childhood's Song

I forget exactly how long ago it was that I had my first introduction to Australia's national song, "Waltzing Matilda," but I was in about the fifth or sixth grade. Like some things you never forget from your childhood, that whimsical and melodious tune filled with strange Aussie words like swagman, billabong, jumbuck and the mysterious waltzing Matilda, stuck in my mind over the years. And during that time, I've visited Australia a few times but never had a chance to take in the remote Australian outback region where the famous Aussie tune originated.

Australia is a huge country and visitors don't just wander off into the vast empty outback--as its desert interior is called--without a reason. But on a recent visit to that great land down under, I had a reason to venture into the far western reaches of outback Queensland and beyond: I was on the trail of the real story of Waltzing Matilda.

"Once there was a swagman camped in a billabong,

Under the shade of a coolabah tree;

And he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling,

Who'll come a waltzing Matilda, with me?

Who'll come a waltzing Matilda, my darling

Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me?

Matilda Country

To reach the outback country, I took a flight from Townsville on Queensland's coast to the small outback town of Winton, the legendary birthplace of "Waltzing Matilda." Winton is not much as towns go. Its quiet main street is lined with typical outback Aussie buildings, a couple of hotel country pubs and a few shops. The town appears to have stepped directly from the nineteenth into the twenty-first century. It's about a thousand miles from nowhere in a dry, parched, almost treeless outback landscape of open plains country.

Winton is the heart of outback Queensland and its widespread community of sheep and cattle stations. Its a rugged country in more ways than one and inhabited by hardy Aussie countryfolk who share the landscape with bounding kangaroos and gangly emus. This is a foreboding land of scorching summer heat that can reach 120F. in the shade (if you can find any) and rains during the "Wet," as it's called, that can create vast flash floods which isolate stations and people for days at a time. This vast rolling prairie and near desert country is to the Australian outback legend and lore of bushman and swagman as the great American west is to the story of the cowboy.

Australia Falls for Matilda

The story of "Waltzing Matilda" began in early 1895 when a young lawyer from Sydney, Banjo Paterson, made the long trip up to Queensland near Winton to visit his fiancé, Sarah Riley, at Vindex Station. During his lengthy stay, they rode over to Dagworth Station for a party with Bob and Christina Macpherson.

While there, they were marooned by the "Wet," and Paterson filled in some time by writing words to a tune Mrs. Macpherson had played on the autoharp. The tune was thought to have been an old Scottish marching song called "Bonnie Wood of Craiglea." Paterson, a bit of a musician, fancied the catchy tune and soon put words to it. He based the lyrics on the local stories he'd heard about the outback stations of the area.

The stories were about jolly swagmen "waltzing their matildas" (wandering men with their belongings rolled up in a blanket), a stolen jumbuck (sheep) and a wanted man who had drowned himself in a billabong (waterhole) rather than be captured by police. Paterson titled his song "Waltzing Matilda."

The song was first performed in public at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton on April 6, 1895, and became an instant hit that soon swept over Australia to become the new nation's favorite song. Over the years, "Waltzing Matilda" became one of Australia's most recognized symbols.

During both World Wars I and II, the song saw scores of Aussie soldiers off to battle in distant lands and endeared its words to a proud nation. The song came to epitomize the rough and tumble landscape of the Australian outback and the rugged individuals who inhabited it.

"Waltzing Matilda leading a water bag

Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me?

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong,

Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee;

And he sang as he stowed him away in his tucker bag,

Oh! You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me."

Outback in Matilda Country

"Waltzing Matilda" is still one of the first introductions many school children get to the great land "Down Under." The song has a lyrical catchy tune that is fun to sing, even if one doesn't quite understand the words completely.

But there is more to the outback than just "Waltzing Matilda." This area is the Australia that we've all learned about from childhood. It is a land of incredible harshness and extremes. It is a vast, dry, desolate and sparsely populated region that dwarfs the Great Plains of the American West.

The small outback towns and settlements are connected by a good highway system but the distances between are extreme. Often the station folks drive for hours just to reach town to shop and do business. Many have their own airplanes which makes travel around the outback more convenient. It's not unusual for folks to fly to a social event at a town or another cattle station rather than drive overland.

Visitors planning to drive through the outback can follow the Matilda Highway, a combination of highways and byways, which link the towns and stations of the region from Cunnamulla in the south, through the central Winton and Longreach area, to Mt. Isa and the Gulf country of northern Queensland. But with the long distances of the outback, visitors are cautioned that driving in the outback can be a time consuming venture through a bleak unvarying landscape. As options, there are bus and rail tours available through the region.

Billy Tea and Damper Bread

One thing visitors quickly note while traveling through the outback are the numerous windmill powered water pumps or "bores" as they are called locally. In this parched country, water is indeed the staff of life. Without a dependable water supply, the stations and towns of the outback would soon wither. The deep ground water bores have allowed the outback sheep and cattle stations to flourish during even the worst droughts in this land of little rainfall.

Visitors to the outback will find a variety of typically Aussie things to see and experience. One of the more adventurous things to do is an overnight or longer stay at a working sheep and cattle station. Many of the region's stations offer outback style accommodations and the chance to experience real station life. Guests can take horseback rides, help muster sheep and cattle, watch a sheepshearing, explore the stark countryside and even enjoy a bushman's campfire lunch complete with billy tea and damper bread.

Outback towns like Winton and Longreach in the heart of Queensland's outback also offer more traditional visitor accommodations and attractions. There are things like museums, the Stockman's Hall of Fame, ancient aboriginal sites, historic homes, and even dinosaur fossils, tracks and monuments.

One of the more typical aspects of outback life is captured in the delightful country pubs found in the small towns and settlements. Here visitors can find a simple country style meal, a cold drink and even a simple room for overnight lodging. But more importantly, an Aussie country pub is sure to have more than a few resident characters than bring the colorful outback persona to life. Among the outback pubs are such places as the Wellshot Hotel in Ilfracombe, the Australian Hotel in Winton and the Walkabout Creek Pub in McKinlay featured in the movie, "Crocodile Dundee," a few years back.

One thing about the outback that dominates everything else is its sheer size. Its something that few can relate to, to understand, to comprehend. It's immense. Few who travel through it come to fully appreciate its vast emptiness. It's almost an alien land, a landscape too big, too harsh and too extreme to define adequately. Urban folk will certainly yearn for the confined spaces of the city after a few days here. For some, this giant land seems almost uncivilized. And yet, despite its drawbacks, the rugged individualists of outback Australia like this lifestyle and find their own ways to cope and survive.

Much like the song "Waltzing Matilda," these Australians have survived down through the years and have become part of the legend and lore of this great land. If ever there were a song written to fit a people and a land, "Waltzing Matilda" certainly fits the real outback Australia. G'day Mate!

"Down came the squatter a riding his thoroughbred,

Down came the policemen one, two and three.

Whose is the jumbuck you've got in the tucker bag

Oh! You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me.

Up jumped the swagman and dived in the water hole,

Drowning himself by the coolabah tree;

And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the billabong

Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me?"

Traveling the Outback

There are local/regional airline services throughout Queensland to towns in the outback region via connecting flights from Australia's major cities.

You can reach the outback by car from any of Queensland's coastal cities of Brisbane, Rockhampton, Townsville or Cairns or from New South Wales and Sydney via the Matilda Highway. Queensland Rail operates "The Spirit of the Outback," a twenty four hour train trek, from Brisbane to Longreach a few times weekly. There are also bus tours to the outback. Accommodations throughout the area range from country hotels/pubs, to motels and some sheep and cattle stations which take in guests.

For more information, check the Australian Tourist Commission on the Web: www.australia.com/queensland. Also check the official Tourism Queensland site, Web: www.qttc.com.au for all related travel details and information.

(Previous versions published in Los Angeles Daily Breeze, Spokane Spokesman-Review, Hawaii Island's Magazine