A poem variously attributed to semi-apocryphal or anonymous authors and published in various versions dating back at least to the early twentieth century, and possibly to midway through the nineteenth. Also possibly the origin of a sort of folk legend, widely known across Australia, about a dog and a foodsafe.
As I came down Conroy's Gap
I heard a maiden cry,
"There goes Bill the Bullocky,
He's bound for Gundagai.
"A better poor old bugger
Never earnt an honest crust;
A better poor old bugger
Never drug a whip through dust.
"His team got bogged down Five Mile Creek,
Bill lashed and swore and cried,
'If Nobby don't get me out of this
I'll tan his bloody hide!'
But Nobby strained and broke the yoke,
And poked out the leader's eye.
And the dog shat on the Tuckerbox,
Five miles from Gundagai.
In most modern versions the dog sits politely on the tuckerbox, but why would anybody write a poem about that?
Today, a small statue of the dog sits politely along the Hume Highway five miles-ish from the town of Gundagai. It is open to debate whether the dog can be considered one of Australia's Big Things.
BQ18