ATTRACTION FOR TOURISTS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29389, 16 December 1960, Page 18

ATTRACTION FOR TOURISTS

Waltzing Matilda’s Billabong

Waltzing Matilda’s billabong. probably Australia’s best-known piece of water, is beginning to draw a pilgrimage of tourists They are coming from throughout Australia and even from abroad, mostly by car. but also by train and by air. The billabong’s real nr.me is Combo Waterhole. It is about 15 miles from Kyuna, and not far from Winton, Winton is about 450 miles east of Rockhampton, in the real Queensland cattle country.

The billabong is remote and peaceful under its coolibah trees, and, so far, has no authenticated ghost of the “swaggie” who was drowned in it, although there have been rumours. The waterhole is part of the Diamentina river bed, but after four dry seasons it has shrunk. 1: is now about 300 yards long and 30 wide, and boomerang-shaped. The poet, A. B. (“Banjo”) Paterson who wrote “Waltzing Matilda” is said to have been picknicking at the billabong when the story of the swagman and the “jumbuck” was told to him. All the world now knows and hums it as Australia’s lilting “national anthem.” Winton’s memorial to Paterson is a statue, in its main street, of an old swagman under a coolibah tree beside a wading pool for children.