Last update 11th July 2016.

 

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This page was first published in 1994 buy Jim McNabb 

This is the original text of the grave taken from a photo made in 1984. (the new text has been changed) 

He served none else but Peter Meehan, 

His master and his friend.

A comradeship wove of the bush,

to last unto the end.

Mute faith in one; a friendships bond,

 in rugged ranges where

A loneliness prevailed the scene,

Just man and dog to share.

They shared each other's humble way,

the ways of bush-lore treading,

From dawn to dusk through wilderness

where cattle-pads went threading.

Beneath Australia's sunny skies,

beneath the treeferns bending,

Along the way of life transcending.

Until the end, the bitter end,

though dumb, in canine way

He wove a story of the bush that

we respect today.

He served to mould a history, though

little was he known.

He rests beside this mountain stream,

beneath these slabs of stone.

 

S. J. Treasure,                                  

               Dargo. (1964) 

This is now the end of a era. 

In 2005 the Government passed a new act for the removing of all Cattle within the Victoria Alpine National Park region. This has brought Victoria in line with New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territories Acts.

 

         

The dog's name was Boney.          

 

 This was the hut at the grave.
dogs-grave.jpg (59367 bytes) Boney's grave dogs-grave-hut.jpg (56745 bytes)
 

The story of the dogs grave is set in the period when George Gray held the lease of the Cobungra Station in 1851-60.

For more information read Cattlemen & Huts of the High Plains. 

First Published by H. H. Stephenson. 1980

This hut was at the dogs grave till around 1984, it was destroyed by fire some time after.

With the overtaking of time, this will be all that's left from Cattle Men of the High Country.

I have visited the dog grave for the first time in ten years in November 2005 and was shocked to see the changes, all trace of the hut has been removed, most of the old stock yard has now disappeared with a camping area and dunnies, even the road in, is just a good dirt road and not the track as it was, the site has now lost it's charm for me, in my opinion it now a waste of time going there.

 

The fires of 2003 have killed most of the understorey and will take many years to recover if it can, just a note the Department of changing name lost control of one of their so-called control burns that led to this fire, no one in the Department was held accountable for the fire. 

There is little or no mid-story bird life left with very few mammals left after the man-made fire storm.   

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © Jim McNabb 1994-2025 All rights reserved.