September 19th
No real reason to hang around in Thago this morning so we
headed off after breakfast on our eastern journey along the Adventure Way. The
first item of interest was the town of Eulo (pop.50), affectionately known as
the Lizard Shire. Eulo hosts the World Lizard Racing Championships on their
Paroo Track annually. It was also once an opal mining centre and there are lots
of mud springs and baths but we didn't wallow in any.
The scenery got greener, the trees larger, the wildlife more
prolific and the river actually had water in it as we drove east. Next stop was
Cunnamulla which very aptly has the Aboriginal meaning "long stretch of
water". We had great coffee and cake here but the real claim to fame is
the Cunnamulla Fella! The Cunnamulla Fella is an icon bush character or an
Aussie larrikin and was made famous by the song "The Cunnamulla
Fella" written by Stan Coster when he was ‘ringing’ in the Cunnamulla area
in the 1950’s.
The song was sung and popularised by Slim Dusty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuf0khtslUA
and more recently Lee Kernaghan recorded
the song with a great video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUmtV21lkvs
Even the Screaming Jets have a version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjYMoB-6OW0
We were disappointed to have missed the Cunnamulla Fella festival
by six weeks and so had to be content with visiting the Cunnamulla Fella statue
in the town centre.
From Cunnamulla, we continued east and ended up on the
border of Queensland and NSW staying the evening at Goondiwindi – lovely town
right on the river and birthplace of the famous racehorse Gunsynd – the Goondiwindi
Grey. Gunsynd was a champion Australian thoroughbred who won 29 races and
$280,455 in prize money in the 70’s. He was popular with the racing crowds due
to his grey coat and tremendous will to win.
No comments:
Post a Comment