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 An Old Stone Hut

with links to country music 

And a lot of other things too

An old ruin of a stone hut just off the Brisbane Valley Highway, near the town of Moore, usually doesn’t warrant a second glance for passers by — that is if it’s noticed at all.  Most miss it altogether including some who purposely look for it.  But, many great historic sites are deceptively insignificant looking.

So what is there about this broken down old hut to link it to the movie “Jaws” , Queensland History, Cobb & Co, houses of “ill-repute”, wild drovers and an excess of unjustified paranoia of “marauding” aborigines.  Plenty for those in the know.

This derelict building, was, among other things, a Cobb & Co station.  Check out the stone walls and the slots are obvious. Sometimes called “the stone house” it was not just a home and place of business,  it was a fort.  These slots were to put rifles through when defending the home from “invading Aborigines” who never actually attacked the place.  One should ask who invaded who  —  but that’s another story.

An old bush song refers to this hut when it describes in detail the route drovers took going to and from the cattle properties “way out west”.  Known by a variety of names, it is a parody of an English forecastle song which itself goes by a number of different names.  The original sea shanty is called, “Spanish Ladies” and the “Ladies of Spain”.   It was featured in the movie “Jaws”.

Sea shanties (also known as “capstan shanties”) were sung as a means of keeping rhythm when performing heavy manual tasks such as hauling up (or weighing) the anchor or tensioning the sails. Accordingly they have a heavy rhythmic component.   In the original song, the English sailors say farewell to the Spanish ladies in much the same way as the overlanders bid adieu to their Brisbane counterparts.

In some ways English sailors and Australian stockmen were somewhat similar. Both lived a roving life of adventure, both wished to perpetuate the old tradition of the spree, and each became the absolute paragon in his particular field.  It is not surprising then this song has been converted.

The reference to the “girls of Toowong” is often sentimentalised giving impressions that tend to be inaccurate and tend to gloss over the fact the region around the old Toowong stockyards was full of sly grog shops and “houses of ill-repute”.  The “girls” were actually prostitutes. 

Like the original, the Australian version has a number of names too including, “Augathella Station”, “Brisbane Ladies”,  “Ladies of Brisbane” , and, “Farewell to the Ladies of Brisbane”.

Brisbane Ladies

               Farewell and adieu to you, Brisbane ladies
               Farewell and adieu, you maids of Toowong
               We've sold all our cattle and northward we'll travel
               But we hope we shall see you again before long.

Chorus:
               We'll rant and we'll roar like true Queensland drovers
               We'll rant and we'll roar as onward we push
               Until we return to the Augathella station
               Oh, it's flamin' dry goin' through the old Queensland bush.

The first camp we make, we shall call it the Quart Pot,
Caboolture, then Kilcoy, and Collington's Hut,
We'll pull up at the stone house, Bob Williamson's paddock,
And early next morning we cross the Blackbutt.

Chorus

Then on to Taromeo and Yarraman Creek, lads,
It's there we shall make our next camp for the day
Where the water and grass are both plenty and sweet, lads,
And maybe we'll butcher a fat little stray.

Chorus

Then on to Nanango, that hard-bitten township
Where the out-of-work station-hands shit in the dust,
Where the shearers get shorn by old Tim, the contractor
Oh, I wouldn't go near there, but I flaming well must!

Chorus

The girls of Toomancie they look so entrancing
Like bawling young heifers they're out for their fun
With the waltz and the polka and all kinds of dancing
To the rackety old banjo of Bob Anderson.

Chorus

Then fill up your glasses, and drink to the lasses,
We'll drink this town dry, then farewell to them all
And when we've got back to the Augathella Station,
Oh, it's flamin' dry goin' through the old Queensland bush.

Traditional Bush Ballad
Article and song submitted by
Wally Finch, Vice President, 
Homestead Branch, ACMA