The Man From The Northern Tropics Poem by Francis Duggan

The man from the warm northern tropics the lands of floods and drought
Is enjoying the cooler climate in the far cooler south
Only in his mid thirties sun wrinkles on his sun bronzed face
His slow drawl of North Queensland down here seems out of place.

He has worked around Australia from Darwin to Ararat
From Adelaide and north to Perth and further north than that
The wander bug is in him his lust for wander strong
The Highways and the Byways calling him to nowhere he belong

In South West Gippsland now as a shearer one of the Seasonal jobs he do
He will work his way around the Gippsland Shire for a month or maybe two
Perhaps next he'll go to South Australia and who knows where he'll go from there
He well may live his life until the day he die without settling anywhere.

He has worked on City building sites and as a Jackaroo
And always up the Highway there's a new Town to go to
Beyond the Queensland border in the brown Countryside
He visualizes the swallows flying o'er the paddocks flat and wide

The man from the northern tropics is shearing in Gippsland for a brief while
The wander bug is in him he has travelled many a mile
In this great Southern Country from Outback Town to Town
The highways and the byways he has travelled up and down.