When the skinny, vegetarian bloke of few words ran around in gumboots to round up the 2,000 sheep on his parents’ 2,000 acres of rain-sogged land, Cliff Young didn’t know he was training to compete. He just knew he needed to get the stock in – on foot. In those cumbersome boots, caked with heavy mud, he would run for two or three days at a time.

He’d already lived half a century when someone told him he’d probably make a decent long-distance runner. Cliff never owned a car and loved to run everywhere, so he started competing. The experts told him he had the wrong diet, the wrong clothing and footwear, the wrong training, and the wrong running style – he did this weird shuffle where he didn’t lift his knees high. Regardless, when he was 61 he entered the 1983 Westfield Sydney to Melbourne ultra-marathon, a five-day event between 864 and 1,060 kilometres long and one of the toughest marathons in the world. The younger competitors and the media laughed at and mocked him. They reckoned ‘the old potato farmer’ might just give himself a heart attack and was just a big joke.

In a story where, as someone said, “It’s as though the milkman’s horse won the Melbourne Cup,” Cliffy won that race, leaving the hot favourite 53km behind him. He cut almost two days off the record, running the distance in five days and fourteen and a half hours, on about twelve hours of sleep, not much to eat, and with a dislocated shoulder. Cliffy kept $3,000 of the $10,000 prize money and shared the rest with the other runners. (Apparently, he didn’t even know there was a prize!)

Australia went wild, and the underestimated, gentle, and trusting bushman whose feet were unrecognisably blistered and whose toenails were mostly hanging off, became an immediate sensation. The spotlight of fame shone brightly on him, but the unlikely hero just wanted to get back to the farm. The ‘Cliffy Young Shuffle’ would transform marathon running, adopted as the best technique to use to conserve energy.

Cliff Young (1922-2003)

Wikimedia commons

ace – excellent

aggro – agitated, angry

bad trot – a run of hard times

bangtail muster – to cut the end off each cow’s tail hair as they’re being counted (banging the tail)

Big Smoke – the city

blood’s worth bottling – such a good person their blood is worth preserving

bonza – very good, top notch

bowled up to – approached

bull dust – lies, nonsense

bunkum – lies, nonsense

bunyip – imaginary creature

burr up – get angry, annoyed

bushie – one who lives in the bush and understands bush life

bush telly – campfire

cark it – expire, die

cattle duffing – stealing cattle, often by branding over the top of an existing brand

cattle rush – stampede

chips are down – going through a bad situation

city slicker – a city person who doesn’t know much about the bush

cleanskins – unbranded cattle

cobber – mate, friend

cooee – a loud call, typically used in the bush to attract attention

coot – fool, knucklehead

cowboy up – when something is hard, don’t quit but do it with a good attitude

cut – castrate cattle

diddly-squat – little to nothing

dinky-di – honest, genuine

dodgy – not right, poor quality

done like a dinner – worn out, exhausted

dubbed – nicknamed

fair crack of the whip – give someone or something a fair go

fair dinkum – true, genuine

feller – someone who cuts down trees

furphy – an incorrect or false story

galah – a foolish person

get jack of – get tired of, lose patience with

goner – someone or something that is dead or dying and can’t be helped

grit – strong character

heyday – a successful time in a person’s life

high-tailed – moved quickly

hobbled – strapping two legs together (e.g. on a horse) so they can’t move around freely

jaunt on the wallaby track – walking around the bush (traditionally swagmen who went from farm to farm looking for work)

Joe Blake – snake

knock off work to carry bricks – a hard worker, one who keeps working after they’ve finished (knocked off) work

narky – cranky

nerd – a boring, often brainy person

Pat Malone – alone

poddy dodging – stealing calves

ringer – a person who works stock, a drover

ripsnorter – something or someone with amazing characteristics or talents

rubber meets the road – where a theory is tested in real life

step up to the plate – put yourself into position to take responsibilty for something

strine – Australian slang

throwing in the towel – giving up, quitting

tucker – food

twenty to the dozen – going very fast

two bob each way – wanting the best of two worlds without committing to either, sitting on the fence

Born in New Zealand, David James Jones, dubbed ’Possum’, immigrated to Australia in 1924 and found work as a shearer for the Stock Owners Association.

During the Great Depression in 1929, when his money was stolen from the boarding house he was staying at, Possum went bush and became a recluse. He declared himself unfinancial when he couldn’t pay his Australian Workers Union Ticket and then lost his shearing job. Disillusioned and disappointed, he turned his back on society and relegated himself to the bush.

Possum was widely known around the Wentworth NSW area. For over half a century he roamed the surrounding bush, having a number of camping spots along the Murray and Darling Rivers. He lived in isolation, preferring his beloved bush and the company of animals, to any human contact. He was renowned for his independence and the long distances he travelled by foot in relatively short periods of times. He was often seen climbing trees in search of honey and sleeping in tree ‘hides’; these habits led locals to refer to him as “The Possum”.

Possum was a shy, gentle person who didn’t do any harm. He always kept himself clean and fit and his pride would not allow him to accept food or shelter. Station owners often found fences and gates mended, wood chopped, sheep crutched, weeds cleared and newspapers missing (although always put back a few days later!). The only payment he ever accepted was for salt and matches. He was well trusted, although if no-one was about, he also habitually released station dogs which were chained up.

Possum died at 82. His body was found against a large gum tree on the Victorian side of the Murray River, just up from Lock 8, on August 4, 1982. It is believed that he had been dead for at least four weeks. A funeral was held, paid for by locals, and was attended by over 250 people, including local and national media. He lays at rest at the Wangumma Cemetery. His headstone simply reads: “David James Jones ‘Possum’ 1901-1982 – at rest where he roamed”. A statue has been erected in his honor in Wentworth. Source: https://visitwentworth.com.au/a-man-called-possum/

In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, nine-year-old Lennie Gwyther rode his pony from his home town of Leongatha in rural Victoria, to Sydney via Canberra, to witness the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lennie’s 1,000-kilometre solo journey captured the imagination of the nation, and his determination and courage provided hope to many at a difficult time in Australia’s history.

Lennie dreamed of being on the spot for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The ride came about when Lennie’s father, Leo Tennyson Gwyther, a decorated World War One hero with chronic war injuries, broke his leg on the Gwyther farm in South Leongatha. While he was in hospital, Lennie completed the ploughing and saved the crops. A thankful Leo asked how he could reward Lennie, and all he wanted was to see the majestic bridge in Sydney he had read about. Lennie mapped the route himself. 

Lennie and Ginger Mick followed bush tracks and barely formed dirt roads east to Cann River then north to Canberra. Horse and boy survived a deranged tramp jumping out at them a few days into their ride, a bushfire near Traralgon, heavy rain and fogs.

In Canberra, where sheep grazed in front of (now Old) Parliament House, Lennie shook prime minister Joseph Lyons’ hand, and took tea in the members’ refreshment rooms. Arriving In Sydney’s Martin Place, Lennie and Ginger Mick were mobbed by the public and the press. Lennie met the Lord Mayor at Sydney Town Hall, visited Circular Quay and Bondi Beach and rode an elephant at Taronga Zoo.

On March 19, Lennie and Ginger Mick took part in the Sydney Harbour Bridge opening pageant, crossing the bridge among indigenous groups, war veterans, schoolchildren and bridge workers and saluting the Governor-General and the New South Wales Premier.

On March 21, at a match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Lennie met his idol, Donald Bradman, who gave him a signed cricket bat.

Lennie convinced his father that he should ride Ginger Mick home. Back in Leongatha on June 10, a huge crowd turned out in the main street. More than 800 people attended a civic reception.

Ginger Mick lived to the age of 27 on the Gwyther farm. Lennie went on to marry, have a daughter and settle in the Melbourne suburb of Hampton. He worked as an experimental engineer at General Motors’ Holden plant at Fishermans Bend, and also was a keen fisherman, astronomer, ice skater, and sailor. At the time of his death, aged 70 in 1992, he was building a  yacht, which he planned to sail to Tasmania and New Zealand.

https://www.monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/adventure/display/111959-lennie-gwyther