A Backblocker's Pleasure Trip

From Albury to Sydney was the best span of all for scenery. It was everchanging and ever-beautiful. The other sections were dotted with beauty spots; but along here they crowded on top of one another. They were all beauty spots; mountain, valley, town and river; orchards, gorges, hamlets and waterfalls, swam past the watching eyes. And there was a succession of names familiar to every Australia school boy. Wagga Wagga and the Murrumbidgee River recalled two old friends to John Jovius Muggs--Wagga rugs and Murrumbidgee blankets. The latter was a bare bag, split open. The former was also a bag, likewise split, with an old woollen' blanket that had become too thin to keep out cold, sewn on for lining. It was common on farms and selections, and scores of travellers with horses and vehicles carried it, also shearers, drovers, and squattage hands used it. This river, too, was the happy hunting ground of the Murrumbidgee whaler and his brother the sundowner. There were some whalers still in the bends, and perhaps always would be; but the sundowners sundowned no more.

We watched the boards now with the growing interest of homing exiles, like long absent members going back to the old homestead, and seeing a story in every landmark.