Gday...

... and I betcha there'll be a lamb stew in the camp oven as well

OH Yeah ... ya gonna take ya speedos or jest go swimming in ya camping clobber ?

Cheers - John

-- Edited by rockylizard on Wednesday 29th of April 2015 06:59:33 PM

This is the best I can do Dorian- Old Onslow, WA, will that do?

 

Go through Longreach, heading towards Winton.
Cross the Thomson River, and turn right. Along the river, there are camping spots right on the bank, and more coolabah's than you can dream of.

Recently I was listening to ABC Classic FM radio and there was a version of Waltzing Matilda sung by an Australian who was a music icon in decades past (I can't remember his name). He kept referring to "billybong", so this led me to wonder how many Australians have actually seen a billabong or know what one is. Then I wondered whether any Australian had actually camped by a billabong under the shade of a coolabah tree, or whether such a combination was just a part of Australian mythology. ISTM that such a place ought to be on every grey nomad's bucket list. Anyway, Kynuna's on mine now. Thanks.

I have visit the Waltzing Matilda centre which is where the story originated from , So that is where you would find one Longreach and Winton area may have to wait for the rains to come first .

Kooroorinya Kelpie wrote:

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Sorry all you Westralians but Bevandy2 is right on the money. The genuine billabong with the coolibah trees is in Longreach, Australia not in the west.

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 Ok, Ok, if the West is not in Australia where is it LOL ?????

Gday NeilandRaine ...

 

 

Cheers - John

NeilandRaine wrote:

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I can't understand why most people think a song about a sheep stealing homeless vagrant who would rather commit suicide rather than face the consequences of his actions is so important.
Ducking for cover now but in parting here is the best version I have heard
www.youtube.com/watch

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That's marvellous N & R .. I'll take that along to my Probus Club meeting and cheer them all up!

One highlight of the Waltzing Matilda Centre is the opportunity to listen to 18!! versions of the Anthem    (Who's heard the Luton Girls Choir version??)

FR

dorian wrote:

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1.   He kept referring to "billybong", so this led me to wonder how many Australians have actually seen a billabong or know what one is.

2.  Then I wondered whether any Australian had actually camped by a billabong under the shade of a coolabah tree, or whether such a combination was just a part of Australian mythology.

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 !.  Way back that was an alternate spelling. It's dropped right away in the last 40 - 60 years and generally only heard now in old recordings.

2.  If you want to get to exact terminology you probably find that the majority of coolibahs are along rivers and not billabongs. This all depends upon how far you stretch the terms. Macquarie defines billabong it as 1, waterhole in an anabranch, replenished only in flood time 2. waterhole in a river or creek that dries up outside the rainy season. Wiktionary defines it as

• (Australia) A stagnant pool of water.
• A streambed that is only filled with water during the rainy season.
• A channel that dead-ends which extends from the main part of a river.
• (Australia, rare) An oxbow lake.

 

So here you have plenty of scope to find a billabong. Then you need to find your coolibahs from amongst the many similar eucalypts. Dictionary.com defines it as Eucalyptus microtheca but there is a distinct species Eucalyptus coolabah.  Further to that some of the pages suggest the trees around Combo Waterhole are microtheca and not coolibah.

So where do you find them. I have found a couple of distribution maps for both.

Eucalyptus coolibah 1  Eucalyptus coolibah  2

Eucalyptus microtheca  1   Eucalyptus microtheca  2.

Now all you have to do is to go and find your appropriate tree beside the right type of waterhole.

Thanks for the research. It seems that the definition of a billabong is a lot broader than I thought.

In fact in high school geography I was taught that a billabong is a crescent shaped lagoon. It is created when a bend in a meandering watercourse is cut off and bypassed. It exactly matches the description of an oxbow lake as defined in Wikipedia, so I am surprised that this definition is described as "rare".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billabong

Here's an article that discusses the origins of the words billabong, Billibang, and billy-bong:

http://andc.anu.edu.au/pubs/ozwords/October_2004/Billy.html

As for coolabah/coolibah, I always thought it was spelt with an "i" until I saw its botanical name, but it appears that both spellings are OK. However, Banjo Paterson's hand written manuscript spells the words as "billabong" and "Coolibah".

Banjo Paterson's hand written manuscript of Waltzing Matilda and Christina Macpherson's hand written manuscript:
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/nph-wb/19990106130000/http://waltzingmatilda.com/wmwords.html

Banjo Paterson / Christina Macpherson, Harry Nathan, Marie Cowan versions of Waltzing Matilda:
http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-34755-20110606-1326-www.nla.gov.au/epubs/waltzingmatilda/3_versions_of_waltzing_matilda.pdf

BTW, when I was looking for the original manuscripts, I was overwhelmed by the amount of material at the National Library of Australia web site. The Trove resource is amazing.

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/34755/20110606-1326/www.nla.gov.au/epubs/waltzingmatilda/bibliography.html
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/external.html?link=http://trove.nla.gov.au/result?q=waltzing+matilda

The term billabong is used very loosely. Way back the Edward River was known as the Kylite Billabong.