FAREWELL BARD

WHILE plenty has tickled the fancy of Bushie’s receptive ear this week, one circulating rumour has been a tough listen. News that Australia’s quintessential bush poet, the Humpty Doo legend Waldo Bayley, is eloping with his wife Sue to Tasmania came as a shock to Bushie, whose little-known sensibility for poetry will be forever the poorer without Waldo’s wonderful verse and rhyme providing backdrop to northern life.