After weeks of playing drover
The school holidays were over.
It was time the boys went back to MBC in Forbes to learn.
Neither one was keen to go back,
They both much preferred the Outback-
Heat and dust, sweat and flies, and bad sunburn.

But good news travels slowly,
And they heard it whispered lowly
There’d been heavy rains up north and on the forecast, more to come.
While the floods could take forever
To come down the bloody river,
They might just be quick enough to keep them both at home.

This was cause for some elation
For the boys on that sheep Station,
You could hardly call young Peter Watts a laggard or a fool,
But if the flood came down the Irrara,
There’s no way across the river,
And thus no way to get the boys to school.

But to Pete & Jim’s delight, the river ‘came up’ overnight,
And it looked like there’d be no way cross the floods and in to town,
And with many miles to travel, the first hundred over gravel,
We’d just have to wait till flooding creeks ‘went down’.

With no truancy intended, their school holiday extended,
The smiles they wore wrapped right across their face, from ear to ear,
They watched the waters flow until a flooded Warrego
Looked like to keep them home throughout the year!

But one day, when it was drier,
Dad had made a bridge from wire,
Strung across the dusty channels of the creek beds down below.
No doubt he had in mind
A daring crossing of some kind,
When the river-beds were flooded and with nowhere else to go.

So dad had strung a wire, that would take a traveller higher
Than a flooding creek that rushed by in a torrent down below.
Above that, another one, ‘bought the height of either son,
“You could cross it safely if you took it slow.”

So the top wire for your hands, and the bottom “where you stands”.
Jim was first to cross the wire with his backpack full of gear.
Pete was watching brother Jim, and when Dad said “follow him”,
He shuttled cross the river without fear.

What happened after that, is “a mystery to the cat,”
Mum & Dad could offer up no further explanation.
But the legend since has grown
‘Bout the boys who must have flown,
So keen were they to get an education.