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There's a corrugated highway |
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Leading north from |
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Port Augusta lined with ratted cars that didn't rate a tow |
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The Salt plains out of |
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Pimba And your eyes begin to stream |
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On to Kingoonya huddled dusty by the road |
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Romantic notions shattered |
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Like the tyres that didn't hack it |
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This has got to be the country's last frontier |
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Where a sports car's next to useless |
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Running cattle grids and river beds |
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We drove a van from 1963 |
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Someone mentioned walkabout |
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And kiss your job goodbye |
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Just to see the country shimmer through the windscreen |
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Drinking beer, telling stories |
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While laughter filled the night |
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And flexi-time's behind you like a bad dream |
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You got a flat on |
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Anzac Highway |
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And Lawson on your shelf |
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Its a Southern |
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Comfort, air-conditioned rage |
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Where a homestead's more than just a cheap print |
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Dangling from a wall |
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And mateship's more than lines upon a page |
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We went looking for |
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Australia |
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In between the |
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TV lines ' |
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Cause the |
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ABC just couldn't make it real |
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Colour documentary |
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From a beanbag on the floor: |
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Never shows as much as it conceals |
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A stark and blistered |
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Alice Springs |
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And a river runs with shame |
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And you wipe the sheets of bulldust from your eyes |
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Another country's uniform |
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And the mirage it falls apart |
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To the open gap between the truth and lies |
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Go and see your country, mate |
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The travel agents scream |
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Politicians sell it's hard to score a pasttime |
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Signs and high-wire fences |
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Hold the land where |
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I belong It's as if |
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I'm in the outback for the last time |