Qualla: Combo Waterhole https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:04 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/j/j/combo-waterhole-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Combo Waterhole https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole Combo Waterhole: Introduction https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole/ Photo credit Alun Hoggett, CC BY 3.0. Almost every Australian can sing it, and most of the world has heard it: a swagman by a billabong, a stolen sheep, troopers closing in, and a man who chooses the water over capture. "Waltzing Matilda" is Australia's unofficial anthem, and the billabong that most likely inspired it is a long, still stretch of water on the Diamantina River called Combo Waterhole. There is no monument here, no grand sign, just coolibah trees, Mitchell grass running to the horizon, and the slow brown water that has held its secret for more than a century.

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Image: Alun Hoggett | CC BY 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/j/j/combo-waterhole-wp/rhjj-combo-waterhole-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Combo Waterhole: The Real Swagman https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole/ Photo credit Alun Hoggett, CC BY 3.0. The song is gentler than the history. In September 1894, the great shearers' strike was tearing through outback Queensland. At Dagworth station, north of Winton, striking shearers fired their rifles and torched the woolshed, killing more than a hundred sheep. The station owner an...

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Image: Alun Hoggett | CC BY 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/j/j/combo-waterhole-wp/rhjj-combo-waterhole-the-real-swagman.mp3 0:06 2 full Combo Waterhole: How the Song Was Born https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole/ Photo credit Alun Hoggett, CC BY 3.0. In 1895, the poet Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson visited the Macpherson family at Dagworth. The story goes that at a picnic by Combo Waterhole, Bob Macpherson told Paterson about the drowned striker and his belief that the billabong was haunted. Christina Macpherson played a tune...

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Image: Alun Hoggett | CC BY 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/j/j/combo-waterhole-wp/rhjj-combo-waterhole-how-the-song-was-born.mp3 0:06 3 full Combo Waterhole: Stone in the Riverbed https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole/ Photo credit Alun Hoggett, CC BY 3.0. The waterhole holds an older labour story too. Stretched across the Diamantina's braided channels are stone-pitched overshot weirs, low causeways of fitted stone built in 1883 by Chinese labourers to manage the river's floods. Thousands of Chinese workers came to the Australian c...

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Image: Alun Hoggett | CC BY 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/j/j/combo-waterhole-wp/rhjj-combo-waterhole-stone-in-the-riverbed.mp3 0:06 4 full Combo Waterhole: A Scar From the Sky https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole/ Photo credit Alun Hoggett, CC BY 3.0. Look at the wider land and a stranger story emerges. Combo Waterhole sits at the northern rim of a roughly circular zone about 130 kilometres across that Geoscience Australia has flagged as a crustal anomaly, a faint scar buried in the rock. Its cause is unproven, but one leading...

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Image: Alun Hoggett | CC BY 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/j/j/combo-waterhole-wp/rhjj-combo-waterhole-a-scar-from-the-sky.mp3 0:06 5 full Combo Waterhole: Standing at the Water https://qualla.com/combo-waterhole/ Photo credit Alun Hoggett, CC BY 3.0. Today Combo Waterhole sits inside a small conservation park, roughly 130 kilometres north-west of Winton off the Landsborough Highway. A walking track leads through Mitchell grass downs and red-soil plains to the water's edge, past the old stone weirs. In the dry season the billa...

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Image: Alun Hoggett | CC BY 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/j/j/combo-waterhole-wp/rhjj-combo-waterhole-standing-at-the-water.mp3 0:06 6 full