Now this is a tale that the coachman told as he flicked
the flies from Marygold and flattered and fondled Pharaoh.
The sun swung low in the western skies.
Out on a plain just over a rise stood Nimity Bell on Moneiro.
Cold as charity,
cold as hell,
bleak, bare, barren Nimity Bell.
Nimity Bell on Moneiro.
Now this here happened in 83,
the coldest winter ever we see.
Strewth it was cold,
as cold as could be out here on Moneiro.
It froze the blankets,
it froze the fleas,
it froze the sap in the blinkin' trees.
It made a grindstone out of cheese right here in Moneiro.
Freezin' and snowin',
ask the old hands, they seen,
they knows and they understands.
The plows was froze and the cattle brands down here in Moneiro.
It froze our fingers and froze our toes.
I seen a passenger's breath so froze.
Icicles hung from his bloody nose long as the tail on Pharaoh.
I catched a curlew down by the creek.
His feet was froze to his bloody beak.
He stayed like that for over a week.
That's cold on Moneiro.
Why even the air got froze,
that tight you could hear the awfulest sounds at night
when things was put to a fire or a light out here on Moneiro.
For the sounds was froze.
At Aden's Bog,
a cove, he cross-cut a big back log.
Carter to Rome,
he wants the job.
Steady, go steady there Pharaoh.
As soon as his log begins to thaw,
they hears the sounds of the cross-cut saw thawing out.
Yeah,
his name was Law. Old hands them laws on Moneiro.
The second week of this year,
cold snap,
I'm driving the coach.
A Sydney chap,
he strikes this part of the Bloomin' Map,
a new hand here on Moneiro.
His name or game, I never heard tell.
But he gets off at Nimity Bill.
Blowing like bluey,
freezing like hell at Nimity Bill on Moneiro.
The drinks was froze, of course, in the bar.
They breaks a bottle of old Freestar and the barman says,
Nope, there you are.
You can't beat that for Moneiro.
The stranger bloke, he was tall and thin,
says, Strike me blue, but I think you win.
We'll have another and I'll turn in.
It's bloody cold on Moneiro.
He borrowed a book and went to bed to read a while.
So the missus said, be the candle light.
He must have read,
oh the night's is long on Moneiro,
past closing time.
Then he starts and blows the candle out.
But the wicked froze.
Least a ways,
that's what folks round here suppose.
Old hands as lived on Moneiro.
So,
being tired and a stranger,
new to these mountain ways,
they think he threw his coat on the wick.
And maybe, too, any old clothes he'd to spare.
Oh, this ain't no fairy, don't you fret.
Next day come warmer and set in wet.
There's some out here as can mind it yet,
the real old hands on Moneiro.
Well,
the wick must have thawed.
The fire began at breakfast time.
The neighbours all ran to save the pub and forgot the man.
Steady, go steady there Mereau.
The pub was burned to the bloody ground.
His buttons was all they ever found.
The bloody cow he owed me a pound from Cooma,
his bloody pharaoh.
And that ain't no fairy,
not what I've told.
I'm getting shaky and growing old.
And I hope I never again see cold like that down here on Moneiro.
He drives his horses.
He drives them well.
And this is the tale he loves to tell,
nearing the town of Nimityville.
Nimityville
on Moneiro.