NICOLE KIDMAN & HUGH JACKMAN
"AUSTRALIA"
A Baz Luhrmann Film
Grand premier opening at Broome Outdoor Picture Gardens, Chinatown – Cocktails and aperitifs – 6:30 pm. 26 Nov 2008.
By Invitation Only
What a fabulous huge epic – the beautiful Lady Sarah Ashley, the un-named drover and Brandon the 'creamie' ( a half caste aboriginal boy from Broome). The story is painted on a canvas of the huge rugged harsh and beautiful Kimberley – with a message to awaken those unknowing to the truths of our outback in the 1940’s – an absolute must see by all.
Fortunately for margo, I was gifted a ticket to the Premier and was lucky enough to enjoy the company of Colin & Tricia for the evening - hob knobbing with me mate ERNIE DINGO who planted a kiss on my cheek and Missy Higgins was also on the “A List“.
We sipped a little champagne to quench our thirst whilst sitting on those wonderful ld uncomfortable sling chairs of days gone by and gazing at the stars on a hot and steamy Kimberley November night. But the best hoot of all, was to see the bats flying in front of the big screen – just an added extra to authenticate
our great big country out there - encompassing the Coburg Ranges “The Cooramon” (Never Never Land) , the Pentecost River, the Bungle Bungles and all of that which is just out the back from Kununurra – the same country that David and I and poodle bussed through – how wonderful to see it all again on the big screen. The young lad Brandon is a Broome boy, we sat next to one of the teachers from his school – she says he is a good lad, but shy with his school mates about the movie. Behind us was a ‘sister’ by skin of David Gulpilil so margo had a chat with her - she and David grew up in Kakadu together. She was not offended by the movie, but thought it showed a nice overview (in a movie sort of fashion) of the cruelties to the Aboriginals in the 1940’s. I was glad to see she was not offended – Baz you get my vote mate !!!!! Thank you for a fabulous movie – d a h r l i n g !!!!
our great big country out there - encompassing the Coburg Ranges “The Cooramon” (Never Never Land) , the Pentecost River, the Bungle Bungles and all of that which is just out the back from Kununurra – the same country that David and I and poodle bussed through – how wonderful to see it all again on the big screen. The young lad Brandon is a Broome boy, we sat next to one of the teachers from his school – she says he is a good lad, but shy with his school mates about the movie. Behind us was a ‘sister’ by skin of David Gulpilil so margo had a chat with her - she and David grew up in Kakadu together. She was not offended by the movie, but thought it showed a nice overview (in a movie sort of fashion) of the cruelties to the Aboriginals in the 1940’s. I was glad to see she was not offended – Baz you get my vote mate !!!!! Thank you for a fabulous movie – d a h r l i n g !!!! Never Never Land
by
Henry Lawson
Henry Lawson
BY homestead, hut, and shearing-shed,
By railroad, coach, and track—By lonely graves of our brave dead,
Up-Country and Out-Back:
To where ’neath glorious clustered stars
The dreamy plains expand—My home lies wide a thousand miles
In the Never-Never Land.
It lies beyond the farming belt,
It lies beyond the farming belt,
Wide wastes of scrub and plain,A blazing desert in the drought,
A lake-land after rain;To the sky-line sweeps the waving grass,
Or whirls the scorching sand—A phantom land, a mystic land!
The Never-Never Land.
Where lone Mount Desolation lies, Mounts Dreadful and Despair—’Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
Where lone Mount Desolation lies, Mounts Dreadful and Despair—’Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;It spreads nor’-west by No-Man’s Land—
Where clouds are seldom seen—To where the cattle-stations lie Three hundred miles between.
The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The drovers of the Great Stock Routes
The strange Gulf country know—Where, travelling from the southern droughts,
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean’s bed,The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.
And west of named and numbered days
And west of named and numbered days
The shearers walk and ride—Jack Cornstalk and the Ne’er-do-well,
And the grey-beard side by side;
They veil their eyes from moon and stars,
And slumber on the sand—Sad memories sleep as years go round
In Never-Never Land.
By lonely huts north-west of Bourke,
By lonely huts north-west of Bourke,
Through years of flood and drought,The best of English black-sheep work
Their own salvation out:Wild fresh-faced boys grown gaunt and brown—
Stiff-lipped and haggard-eyed—They live the Dead Past grimly down!
Where boundary-riders ride.
The College Wreck who sunk beneath,
The College Wreck who sunk beneath,
Then rose above his shame,Tramps West in mateship with the man
Who cannot write his name.’Tis there where on the barren track
No last half-crust’s begrudged—Where saint and sinner, side by side,
Judge not, and are not judged.
Oh rebels to society!
Oh rebels to society!
The Outcasts of the West—Oh hopeless eyes that smile for me,
And broken hearts that jest!The pluck to face a thousand miles—
The grit to see it through!The communism perfected!—
And—I am proud of you!
The Arab to true desert sand,
The Arab to true desert sand,
The Finn to fields of snow;The Flax-stick turns to Maoriland,
Where the seasons come and go;And this old fact comes home to me—
And will not let me rest—However barren it may be,
Your own land is the best!
And, lest at ease I should forget
And, lest at ease I should forget
True mateship after all,
My water-bag and billy yet
Are hanging on the wall;
And if my fate should show the sign,
I’d tramp to sunsets grand
With gaunt and stern-eyed mates of mine
In Never-Never Land.
