Stringybark And Greenhide

Now the aeroplanes go screaming across the blue skies overhead
And the big trucks cross the nation night and day
While satellites bring TV to the homesteads in the bush
And the limousines replace the horse and dray
But our pioneering fathers had no comforts such as these
They faced hardship with their women by their side
With no wire or nails to help them in the vastness of the bush
They built stockyards out of lancewood and greenhide
And the cattle walked to market on the stock routes of the west
And a man was judged by the way he used to ride
And the Afghans with their camels were the road trains of the bush
They built a nation out of stringy and greenhide
Hey
And with stringybark and mud daub they built the old bark hut
And the shantys on the roadside by the way
Oh they cleared the land and felled the trees with crosscut and the axe
And with greenhide whip the bullocky held sway
Oh they took their mobs of cattle and their spreading flocks of sheep
And no mountain range or desert held them back
Oh the battled thirst and heat in their bid to tame this land
And the silent watchful ever stalking black
And the cattle walked to market on the stock routes of the west
And a man was judged by the way he used to ride
And the Afghans with their camels were the road trains of the bush
They built a nation out of stringy and greenhide
Hey
When no barbed wire bound the wide domains of the western cattle runs
And the men were as wild as the land they used to roam
Oh the greenhide rope and bridle were the stockmen’s tools of trade
And a stringybark bush shelter was their home
And when fine young men rode walers off to fight their countries war
And made history with their suffering and their pain
Oh they wrote the name Australia in the headlines of the world
Will this country ever see their likes again?