A Journey On The South Gippsland Freeway Poem by Francis Duggan

From Cranbourne to Tooradin and Kooweerup
The flatlands off the freeway looking brown
From Lang Lang on through Grantville down Bass highway
On the coast road towards old Wonthaggi Town.

And as you journey south through old Kilcunda
Renowned for it's splendid coastal scenery
From your car your first glimpse of the surf waves rolling
From the road along by the high cliffs o'er the sea.

Victoria's first colonial historians
Wrote south Gippsland was a land of many trees
Where woodlands were large tracts of wide brown paddocks
The so called progress of two centuries

The environmentalists nowadays advise the farmers
To plant more trees as protection for their land
The first settlers cut down the old growth forests
Nature's ecology they did not understand.

From Cranbourne to Inverloch and further
The sparsely treed landscape looking bare
From the long dry spells and the years of overstocking
And the damage done will take time to repair.

A journey down the Southern Gippsland freeway
Through Cranbourne through a country flat and brown
On by Kooweerup and Lang Lang and on through Grantville
And further south beyond Wonthaggi Town.