Bit warm today over 40C, so had a few beers when I knocked off.  

Do you remember the summer of '63
That melted the rocks of the back-country?
The year the sand fused into glass
And the sun burnt the gorge in Murchison Pass?

Well, I was there in that terrible heat,
Where borders of west and south Australia meet,
About 900 miles from Oonapelli.
That was the time I met – Ned Kelly

Out of the simmering, heat haze fog,
Strode Kelly, with arms loaded with grog,
"I'm Kelly alright!" he said to me,
"And I'm twice as dead as you'll ever be."

"For 90 years I wandered this place,
In search of a suitable drinking mate,"
"You've found him!" I quickly said,
"So let's put some of these bottles to bed.

We drank in the sun and talked of days
When men wore guts where they now wear stays,
Then came the thump of many feet,
As heavy boots thudded thru that stifling heat

A line of men fractured the desert haze,
T'was old Paddy Hannan – Gawd spare me days!
Followed by Thunderbolt, Burke and Wills,
Ben Hall, Captain Moonlight and Saltbush Bill.

Each carried some grog – cold as a tomb,
So Ned and I moved, gave them some room,
To place the keg that was carried by Hall,
Fair in the centre, and on tap to all.

Then in strode Lawson and Ludwig Leichhardt,
Who said: "Lassiter's coming, but it's ok to start,
I've invited some friends from the desert nearby,
And they're all decent blokes, here's dust in your eye!"

We were joined by a bright green kangaroo,
And an overweight wombat, who did a soft shoe,
A dignified dingo, with performing fleas,
And a soprano galah who squawked off-key

And a sabre-toothed snake whistled 'Old Lang Syne',
While a marsupial mouse, with his nose, twitched time.
We sat in the sun and we drank for a week,
In the finest company a man could keep.

I danced me a jig, for comic relief,
And in disturbing the dust found Lassiter's Reef.
There was copper and nickel and silver galore,
Diamonds the size of a knob on a door.

Rubies and sapphires – a fabulous haul,
And ten pounds of gold to each shovel full.
But none gave a thought to such meaningless wealth
For each was contented unto himself.

After we'd drank for a year and a day,
The party broke up and we went our own ways,
I travelled south to the Nullabour Plains,
And in two or three days was back home again.

But I said not a word of where I had been,
And never recounted the things I had seen,
But the experience taught me one important fact:
Never drink in the sun without wearing a hat!    

Drinking with that crew for a year and a day would do it to ya even if you wore ya hat.
SBB

Great of piece  of verse mate well done
Kev