To The Yarra River

From the snow hills of Mt Baw Baw in your cloak of gray to brown
Through the scrublands and the paddocks and through many a country town
All the way through Melbourne City where you back up and move slow
And you travel at a snail's pace as near to the sea you flow.

You've been traveling forever for how long god only know?
Long before black man first saw you sixty thousand years ago
And from tribe of 'Yarra Yarra' came your indigenous name
And your name of Yarra River ever with you will remain.

If you could talk Yarra river you'd go down the centuries
Long before the white man's coming when this land was full of trees
And you'd tell about the white man how he cut the tall gums down
And he sacrificed the forest for to build a concrete town.

And you could go back much further way back down the centuries long
On your banks the black tribes gathered for to party and sing song
You have known so many changes as the centuries come and go
But through droughts and long hot summers you have never ceased to flow.

Before coming of dinosaur before birth of first gum tree
All the way down from Mt Baw Baw on your journey to the sea
Through the scrublands and the paddocks and through many a country town
And through Melbourne to Port Phillip in your cloak of gray to brown.