Some years ago I’d visited the statue of the dog on a tucker box when I drove back to Sydney from Melbourne. I knew that Maureen hadn’t seen this statue, so I planned a small diversion for her to visit Gundagai (pronounced Gun-da- guy say it quickly) on the home would leg of our road trip. The town is about eight kilometers ( five miles) from Snake Gully, where the statue is located.
The legend of the dog and the tucker box (food box) began around 1850. Pioneers had moved south & west from Sydney around 1830 looking for land along the Murrumbidgee River (which is 1488 km or 900 miles long). They dragged everything using bullock teams and in the wet they got bogged down.
One story is that a poem called Bullocky Bill told of a dog that guarded his master’s tucker box until he died.
There are two main poems about the dog on the tucker box – the one below, a PC version (from 1920s), and another below the first (written in 1850s).
‘Nine Miles from Gundagai’ by Jack Moses
I’ve done my share of shearing sheep,
Of droving and all that;
And bogged a bullock team as well,
On a Murrumbidgee flat.
I’ve seen the bullock stretch and strain
And blink his bleary eye,
And the dog sit on the tuckerbox
Nine miles from Gundagai.
I’ve been jilted, jarred and crossed in love,
And sand-bagged in the dark,
Till if a mountain fell on me,
I’d treat it as a lark.
It’s when you’ve got your bullocks bogged,
That’s the time you flog and cry,
And the dog sits on the tuckerbox
Nine miles from Gundagai.
We’ve all got our little troubles,
In life’s hard, thorny way.
Some strike them in a motor car
And others in a dray.
But when your dog and bullocks strike,
It ain’t no apple pie,
And the dog sat on the tuckerbox
Nine miles from Gundagai.
But that’s all past and dead and gone,
And I’ve sold the team for meat,
And perhaps, some day where I was bogged,
There’ll be an asphalt street,
The dog, ah! well he got a bait,
And thought he’d like to die,
So I buried him in the tuckerbox,
Nine miles from Gundagai.
……………………………………………………..
Author unknown about 1850
I’m used to punchin’ bullock teams across the hills and plains.
I’ve teamed outback for forty years through bleedin’ hail and rain.
I’ve lived a lot of troubles down, without a bloomin’ lie,
But I can’t forget what happened just five miles from Gundagai.
‘Twas getting dark, the team got bored, the axle snapped in two.
I lost me matches and me pipe, so what was I to do?
The rain it was coming on, and hungry too was I,
And me dog shat in me tucker-box five miles from Gundagai.
Some blokes I know have stacks of luck, no matter where they fall,
But there was I, Lord love a duck, no bloody luck at all.
I couldn’t heat a pot of tea or keep me trousers dry,
And me dog shat in me tucker-box five miles from Gundagai.
Now, I can forgive the bleedin’ team, I can forgive the rain.
I can forgive the damp and cold and go through it again.
I can forgive the rotten luck, but ‘ang me till I die,
I can’t forgive that bloody dog, five miles from Gundagai.
silverfox175 