The Murranji

THE MURRANJI


The Murranji Stock Route disappears
through bullwaddy and lancewood, strung on
mythic Murranji waterholes mapped in legends
of yesteryears tales as if lost off padways
or mirage routes where the very absence
of signposts telling the way was the way.

Google Maps don't show it, not on Earth
yet it went from old Newcastle Waters
or Daly Waters, west into scrub-choked
rangelands, toward big Cattle Stations
in wilderness lands, like Top Springs,
or right on to Victoria River Downs.

For drovers and cattlemen came through
here taking north-west starred paths
through the vast and featureless plains
all-covered in tall mulga with dense scrub
of eremophila & dead-finish so that a vista
was not, and still is hardly to be found.

So they went like the Magi and navigated
by the sun or by too-bright night-time stars
staring down final hope beyond the dust
off the wilted ears of a horse and across
loud horns of slakeless cattle as if it was by
way of a daily mulga-bushed miseternity

unless your ways went to make wonders
of the vegetated earth in colours
entering the carols of the birds.


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Images: paintings by Carol McCormack, Qld

1. (above) The Murranji Track - by Carol McCormack, Qld

Painter's note: 'Like the Yellow Brick Road, the Murranji Track appears to go on forever. I drive in comfort, thinking of the drovers who used to push their herds through this almost impenetrable Bullwaddy and Lancewood scrub.'



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2. (below) Murranji - Flight - by Carol McCormack, Qld

Painter's note: 'As we drive the long track, parrots and lorikeets flash past, too swift to identify,
their brilliant colours both blend and contrast with the surrounding scrub.'

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