The Diamantina Drover by Sandra Milliken 4-Part - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.774725

"The Diamantina Drover" is a song about life in the saddle in outback Queensland written by Australian singer-songwriter Hugh McDonald (1954-2016). Hugh was probably best known as a member of the folk-rock group Redgum. From 1986 to 1990 he was their lead singer and wrote a number of the group's hit songs, including "The Diamantina Drover".

"The Diamantina Drover" tells the story of a drover who leaves behind his family in Sydney and sets out to find work on Cork Station on the banks of the Diamantina River in the channel country of far western Queensland. He promises his family that he’ll return home when the droving is finished. But ten years go by and, despite the hardships of the drover’s life, he still finds it hard to leave behind the wide-open spaces and return to city life.

The "Diamantina" in the song title refers to the Diamantina River, one of several large Queensland river systems that make their way towards Lake Eyre, in South Australia. Because the Lake Eyre basin is located entirely in desert and semi desert country, the rivers flow only intermittently following periods of heavy rain. For most of the time, the shallow river channels are dry and dusty, and Lake Eyre is an expansive salt plain.