Wollongong and Illawarra

Words: Unknown
Tune:  Traditional (Roy's Wife)

CHORUS:
Wollongong and Illawarra
Wollongong and Illawarra

Native poets yet will sing

Of Wollongong and Illawarra

The times may take a sulky fit

Like any honest married womand,

Whose husband is what she is not,

For she's a mind above the common.

But nature here forever smiles,

Her mountain paths lead up to heaven

Where sight and sounds the soul beguiles

Of every ounce of earthly leaven.

As I went up to Jamberoo

I met so many pleasant people

'Twas still "Good Day" and "How d'ye do?"

And "How are all around the steeple?"

I thanked them asking, "How are you?"

And how are little Tom and Kitty?

And that sweet infant? - well I vow,

I never saw a child so pretty".

And then the pigs would gracious grunt,

The dog would set the tail a-shaking,

And wives would, smiling say, "Now won't

You just step in and taste the bacon?"

"With all my heart," so in I went,

And found their weather-boarded dwelling

So clean, so neat, that sweet content,

Reflected, saw her bosom swelling.

This fact, e'er since I crossed the seas,

I rarely fail at meals to utter,

That Bathurst stands unmatched for cheese,

And Wollongong for yellow butter.

Health, wealth and joyous, happy days,

To Wollongong and Illawarra,

They well deserve a poet's praise,

The honest folks of Illawarra.

From Ron Edwards' Big Book of Australian Folk Songs and Keesing and Stewart's Old Bush Songs.

Imagine the exhilarating time you could have with someone who never fails to mention at dinner that Bathurst makes the best cheese in the world.