Slim Dusty - End of the Canning Stock Route lyrics

rate me

The camp gear's in the storeroom, all the packs are in the shed

With the dust of seven summers on their hide

Saddle straps are hard and brittle, stirrup irons are rusty red

For the Canning Stock Route finished when Wally Dowling died;

No more cattle travel southward through the spinifex and sand.

All the wells are falling in along the track

Now the Cannings but a legend, just a lonely desert land

And it's doubtful if the Munjongs want it back.

Eight hundred miles of sandhills, now and then a sandstone ridge

With a salt lake here and there with samphire flat;

An oasis in the desert you can find at Durba Spring,

Bubbling, running water, it's a fact;

But unless you own a camel, you could never travel there,

And a horse would fail now the wells have fallen in.

For the sandhills on the Canning reach a hundred feet or more

And it's certain that no car could take you in.

The famous 'Never Never' and the place they call 'Outback'

Two elusive lands that few men ever found

Are located on the Canning down that lonely desert track

Where to be this very moment would be worth a thousand pound.

To be with Wally Dowling, whipping water from the well,

While the stockmen hold the mob back from the trough,

Stop the thirsty bullocks trampling in their great desire to drink.

Just to do one trip would suit me well enough.

But my wish is just a daydream, which can never be fulfilled,

For when Wally died the stock route had it's day.

Now the Billaluna cattle are travelling down to Broome

In a roaring diesel roadtrain, to the meatworks by the bay,

And the tick line stops the others, every station in the north.

No one may use the Canning if he would;

So they truck their beef to Wyndham and sell for what it's worth;

And I doubt they'd use the Canning if they could.

It's really had it's day now and won't be used again,

No more drovers horse bells ringin' will be heard,

For the cattle loaded roadtrain, smothered in it's diesel fumes,

Now struggles up the rise in lower third.

When I travel up the Canning, I am sure to be alone

With my camels and some thoughts of yesterday.

They will take me slowly northward, 'til at last the trip is done,

And find contentment when I've stowed the packs away.

The camp gear's in the storeroom, all the packs are in the shed,

With the dust of seven summers on their hide

Saddle straps are hard and brittle, stirrup irons are rusty red

For the Canning Stock Route finished when Wally Dowling died;

[From his album: "Things I See Around Me"

Songwriters/composers: Peter Muir; Slim Dusty;

Contributed: Marten Busstra 2009]