Travelling Worm

In this post: The Big Koala, The Dog on the Tuckerbox, and a fearsome Fairy-wren, all near the New South Wales country town of Gundagai.

This is the blog of Mark Wordsworm, the travelling worm. I’m a 40-year-old bookmark (give or take a few years) and I proudly boast my own Hallmark serial number, 95 HBM 80-1. You’ll probably want to read all about me and my Travelling Companion (the TC).

Today’s travel notes

On our way to the Victorian High Country, me and the TC stopped for a short break in the country town of Gundagai. The town is a popular stopping place on one of the main routes to the border between New South Wales and Victoria.

Just outside the town, we met a big koala, a dog perched on a tucker box, and a bird that sits still for no-one.

“What’s a tucker box,” you ask? It’s a lunch box. Nowadays, Australians carry their food around in an esky rather than a tucker box. “Esky?” That’s a cool bag or ice box, named after “eskimo”.

The book I’m in

The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Yes, the TC is putting me in some heavy stuff. We’ll see how this turns out.

Travel tips

When driving the Australian highways, take a turnoff and see where it leads.

The photos

Me and the Big Koala near Gundagai:

It was, errm, interesting being so close to those claws. Yours truly survived by dint of keeping a low profile. That’s easy to do when you’re two-dimensional. Just turn sideways on.

There are “big somethings” dotted all around Australia. This worm has already met the Big Bogan at Nyngan and the Kurri Kurri Kookaburra. Now the Big Koala. No doubt the TC, bless her itchy feet, will go in search of more big somethings.

A few million steps from the Big Koala (a few million, that is, if you’re a small worm like yours truly) is the Dog on the Tuckerbox:

The plaque below the dog and the tucker box declares the statue to be a tribute to the pioneers of Australia, unveiled in 1932.

A rustic sign post tells the story:

Ironically, as far as I can tell, the dog that features as the hero of this monument was probably based on lyrics by Charlie ‘Bowyang’ Yorke, who wrote a far less clean poem than the two shown on the sign. In Charlie’s story, the dog did a poo on the cattleman’s tucker box.

I’ve used a more polite word than the original poem, to protect tender ears. You can probably guess the original word: it rhymes with “sat“, which is now used as a replacement in the poem.

What’s more, the dog chose his moment when the cattleman was battling through the hardest of times: his wagon was bogged, the axle snapped, the team of bullocks stuck, and rain starting. The unfortunate cattleman couldn’t even dry his trousers or boil a pot of tea.

On to prettier things:

In using the word “pretty”, yours truly is of course referring to the lichen on the twigs, not to the beady-eyed creature perched above. That’s a baby dinosaur, known to some as a Superb Fairy-wren, and it eats people like me for breakfast. I stayed hidden in my book while the TC ooh-ed and aah-ed over the monster.

I’ll be back soon with more news about our trip to the Victorian High Country.

That’s all for today, folks