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The Girl From The Snowy Mountains ( true story )

Category: /General/

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This Is The True Story Despite The Selective
Memories Of A Small Country Town in Australia
But they should have later wrote about the girl~
Who rode all of those Snowy River Mountain tracks
All those who knew her simply called her Shirl~

Shirley Nadine Harris her name when born up there
And she rode horse and sat saddle soon after birth~
Doing as a girl all men ever did on the mountain
And while doing so always gave it all her worth~

She was born and lived on her fathers property back then
On the New South Wales Snowy Mountains High~
Up on Argalong Station where the air is pure as can be
And the wedge tailed eagles they all fly ~

Her fathers Horrie Harris owned and ran that spread~
And many will stand and salute his memory today~
He taught young Shirley almost all she knew
And she did all and more and did it all her way~

They'd take the sheep and cattle all the way through
Micalong swamp,Roast beef flat and Emu flat as well~
Broken cart and Brindabella Valley
And Blue water Hole it still rings such a bell~

They'd let the stock go on all those flats back then
Near fresh water from mountain creeks that did flow~
And then the cattle they would graze on long plain
Argalong to blue water hole was a hundred miles it's so~

It would take them about three months in all back then
In September every year this is what they'd do~
Then in April and May muster that country over again
Before the snow it fell and those Snowy winds they blew~

They'd camp out on the flats back then
While doing this as they always did so well~
And this Snowy Mountain girl was always there
Shirley Nadine Harris as all true memories tell~

This girl mustered , marked , dipped and drenched
Knew of cattle,horse and all of sheep~
With working dogs she sat a horse every day
On the Snowy River Mountains steep~

Nothing in a mans working day up there
That Shirley could not and did not do~
And the facts will tell she did it all so well
Every inch of that Snowy River Mountain Shirley knew~

She never was a hero as Banjo described the man
Who was in fact actually a boy home from school then~
Told to stay at home while they mustered horses
But almost killed himself with two horses away back when~

In those days their horses were their lively hood
They never rode them over ridges just for fun~
They rode and treated their horse flesh with the utmost respect
Nothing stupid upon a horse back then was ever done~

Shirley Nadine Harris was born and bred on the Snowy River Mountain
And lived away up upon those Snowy River Mountain spreads~
Riding horse every day as she grew from a girl
From the highest mountain slopes to the Snowy River beds~

Knowing all there was to know of horse and cattle
And all that then on a mountain property to be known~
Riding a horse as good as any up there had ever done
Where snow fell and all those mountain winds had blown~

Shirley Nadine Harris was a Snowy Mountain Girl
And she then worked and rode and did it all~
Away up upon all those Snowy River Mountain trails
Up where the Snowy River mountain snow does fall~


Terrence Michael Sutton
copyright 1988

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• aussiepoet

  Sun Feb 18 02:48:21 UTC 2018
  I knew this woman to talk to when I myself was only a lad ..