The SUBOIR Walking Club
by Paterson's Curse
It was somewhere in the city, in a place that lacked the scrub,
That they formed an institution called the SUBOIR Walking Club.
They were various in nature from the city and surrounds,
And the scunge was never grown that SUBOIR couldn't knock down;
But ther style of going walking was irregular and rash -
They had mighty little sense, but a mighty lot of bash:
And they walked in mountain ranges that were lofty clean and airy,
Though the scrub was very vicious, and the passes often hairy.
And they used to train their bodies drinking schooners in the pub:
They were drunkards, were the members of the SUBOIR Walking Club.
It was somewhere down the city, in a sewer's smell and bogs,
That a caver's club existed, which was simply called 'The Trogs'.
As an 'outdoor' institution 'twas an absolute disgrace,
For the members were distinguished by a noted lack of taste.
They had ropes and slings and ladders, that were used to go down holes,
For their rather twisted owners seemed to think that they were moles.
So they slithered up the Botany Lawn in pursuit of confrontation,
For they meant to show SUBOIR it seems their 'skill' in navigation;
And they took their helmets with them - gave their overalls a rub
'Ere they pitted all their tiny wits 'gainst the SUBOIR Walking Club.
Now my readers can imagine how the contest began in the pub,
When the SUBOIR lot got going it was time to bash the scrub;
And the Trogs had hardly started 'ere they all began to quake
A Trog's leg was broken - just from Norman rolling gibbers in their wake.
For they navigated north from Bell till the 'Gambe was strewn with dead,
While Trogs succumbed from scrub, SUBOIR succumbed from alcohol - so neither got ahead.
And the president of the Trogs when he stumbled off to die,
Was the last surviving contestant - so the game was called a tie.
Then the president of the SUBOIRS raised him slowly from the ground,
'Twas Bertie of the Bungleboori, and he fiercely gazed around;
There was no one to oppose hm - all the rest were overcome with scrub and vapours,
So he scrambled up a precipice and spied Tayan Peak (which tapers),
For he meant to bash the scrub to get victory to his side;
So he jumped for a ledge - and missed it - then he tumbled off and died.
By the old Bungleboori Creek, where the water chills your arse,
There's a row of Pagoda-like gravestones that the walkers never pass,
For they bear a rude inscription saying, "Touri bugger off - don't come near,
"For the Troglodyte-like creatures and the SUBOIR lot lie here."
And on misty claggy evenings, when 'Three Peakers' pike in droves,
You can see the shadows flitting through the very prickly groves;
You can hear the Trogs a'whingeing and the walkers navigating,
And the clash of personalities and the broken bones a'grating,
Till the terrified night walkers run like blazes to the pub -
They've been haunted by the spectres of the SUBOIR Walking Club.
(N.B. For the uninitiated, SUBOIR is prounounced sub-wah; from the French).
(Apologies to a well known author/poet)