On 26 April 1890, iconic Aussie bush poet and balladist, Banjo Paterson, first published his legendary poem “The Man from Snowy River” in Australian news magazine, “The Bulletin” (which published weekly from 1880 until 2008).
The poem is set in the hilly NSW countryside near (now) Burrinjuck Dam on the Murrumbidgee River in the 1880s – around 100kms north-west of where Canberra is now. The poem commemorates a talented horseman – having learned his craft in the more treacherous grazing high country (another Aussie icon we have been largely cut off from) – whose sublime skills and courage enables the recapture of a colt of a prize-winning race-horse that had recently escaped and joined the local brumbies.
Australia commemorates Banjo (Andrew Barton) Paterson and his most famous poem by inclusion on our blue $10 note.
So, for the day after ANZAC Day, pay tribute to Banjo’s inaugural publication of his most famous poem by:
- watching the iconic 1980s Aussie film “The Man from Snowy River” which starred Tom Burlinson, Sigrid Thornton and Jack Thompson
