I enjoyed the original post - it brought back quite a few memories for me. Then the second post comes along reminding me that we are getting soft in our old age. I certainly have become very soft. We drive around this wonderful country in our air conditioned 4WD's and complain when there are roadworks because our car may get dirty. In the early 1980's, I was working in Thailand on a project on the River Kwai - the infamous Burma railroad ran right through the damsite. I travelled the road up to the site in an air conditioned Landrover and that was quite an ordeal at the time - mud and rough roads, crossing the river on a barge towed by a longtail boat. Hell, when the barge got stuck in the mud, they even brought out an elephant to push us into the main stream and get going!  But that was absolutely nothing compared to the thousands of men who built the railway under appalling oppression and conditions. The suffering they must have endured cannot even be half imagined. Returning home after each stint there, and in other places where I worked, I really appreciated what we have in Australia - the freedom, the stability, the potential to do anything we want. And others come into our country wanting us to change to their oppressive ways of life which they have fled themselves. No way! Appreciate what we have and stand up and fight to keep it that way. Sorry, I'll get down off my hobby horse now....

Wow!  I love this thread & the romantic Bucket List of the OP.

We all love the romantic image of the bush painted by the great ABP 'The Banjo' but I love also to read the contribution of another great Aussie Poet of that era the great Henry Lawson.  Their 'battles' in the Bulletin make excellent reading.

I've picked out one of the tongue in cheek contributions of Henry (probably) that give a different view of Banjo' romanticised (there's that word again) bush.

Borderland

I am back from up the country very sorry that I went
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back. 
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast, 
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town, 
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

'Sunny plains'! Great Scot! those burning wastes of barren soil and sand 
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land! 
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies, 
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes; 
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep 
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep. 
Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass 
Turned from some infernal furnace, on a plain devoid of grass.

Miles and miles of thirsty gutters; strings of muddy waterholes 
In the place of "shining rivers" (walled by cliffs and forest boles). 
"Range!" of ridges, gullies, ridges, barren! where the madden'd flies
Fiercer than the plagues of Egypt swarm about your blighted eyes! 
Bush! where there is no horizon! where the buried bushman sees 
Nothing Nothing! but the sameness of the ragged, stunted trees! 
Lonely hut where drought's eternal suffocating atmosphere
Where the God forgotten hatter dreams of city life and beer.

Treacherous tracks that trap the stranger, endless roads that gleam and glare, 
Dark and evil-looking gullies, hiding secrets here and there! 
Dull dumb flats and stony "rises", where the toiling bullocks bake, 
And the sinister "gohanna", and the lizard, and the snake. 
Land of day and night no morning freshness, and no afternoon, 
For the great white sun in rising bringeth summer heat in June. 
Dismal country for the exile, when the shades begin to fall 
From the sad heart-breaking sunset, to the new-chum worst of all.

Dreary land in rainy weather, with the endless clouds that drift 
O'er the bushman like a blanket that the Lord will never lift
Dismal land when it is raining growl of floods, and, oh! the woosh 
Of the rain and wind together on the dark bed of the bush
Ghastly fires in lonely humpies where the granite rocks are pil'd 
In the rain-swept wildernesses that are wildest of the wild.

Land where gaunt and haggard women live alone and work like men, 
Till their husbands, gone a-droving, will return to them again
Homes of men! if home had ever such a God-forgotten place, 
Where the wild selector's children fly before a stranger's face. 
Home of tragedy applauded by the dingoes' dismal yell, 
Heaven of the shanty-keeper fitting fiend for such a hell
And the wallaroos and wombats, and, of course, the curlew's call
And the lone sundowner tramping ever onward thro' it all!

I am back from up the country up the country where I went 
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent; 
I have left a lot of broken idols out along the track, 
Burnt a lot of fancy verses; and I'm glad that I am back. 
I believe the Southern poet's dream will not be realised 
Till the plains are irrigated and the land is humanised. 
I intend to stay at present as I said before in town 
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes taking baths and cooling down.

ps .. It is worth reading ABP's response ....  In Defence of The Bush. 

Try this link

http://grapevine.com.au/~kwebb/Poems.html#5

And then there are all the other contributions that follow, keeping the readers of The Bulletin entertained.

 ps.

Reading this has ruined my night's sleep.  I'll now just have to go back downstairs to my recliner with a tablet & re-read into the wee hours, all of these verses once again.  LOL

Another of my favourite poets of the era is William Henry Ogilvie  ....

This is to my mind one of his best ..

The Riding of The Rebel

He was the Red Creek overseer, a trusted man and true,
Whose shoulder never left the wheel when there was work to do;
Through all the day he rode the run, and when the lights grew dim
The sweetest wife that ever loved would wait and watch for him.
She brought him dower of golden hair and eyes of laughing blue,
Stout heart and cunning bridle-hand to guide the mulga through;
And when the mob was mustered from the box flats far and wide
She loved to mount the wildest colts that no one else would ride.

And once it chanced a wayward steed, half-mouthed and roughly broke,
Denied the touch of gentle hand and gentler words she spoke,
And, plunging forward like the ship that feels the autumn gales,
He reared and lost his footing and fell backwards on the rails.
Her husband bent above her with cold terror at his heart --
The form was still he loved so well, the wan lips would not part;
And all the day in trance she lay, but when the stars smiled down
He heard his name low-whispered and he claimed her still his own.

And afterwards he spoke his fear: 'Heart's love, if you should die! . . .
Unless you take our orders from some other man than I,
You shall never finger bridle, never mount on horse's back,
Till the outlaw on Glenidol is a broken lady's hack!'
There's an outlaw on Glenidol that is known through all the West,
And three men's lives are on his head, bold riders of the best;
The station lads have heard the sneer that travelled far and wide,
And flung the answering challenge: 'Come and teach us how to ride!'

Roll up, ye merry riders all, whose honour is to guard!
We've mustered up the ranges and the Rebel's in the yard,
His open mouth and stamping foot and keen eye flashing fire
Repeat the temper of his dam, the mettle of his sire.
Roll up, ye merry riders all, from hut and camp and town!
You'll have to stick like plaster when the stockyard rails go down.
But the boss will come down handsome, as the boss is wont to come,
To the first who brings The Rebel under spurs and greenhide home.

And the stockmen heard the challenge from the Cooper to the Bree,
And rode from hut and cattle-camp by one and two and three
To keep their horseman's honour clean and play a hero's part,
To best the bold Glenidol boys and break The Rebel's heart.
And Ruddy Neil, the breaker, from the Riverine came through
With all the latest breaking-gear and all the wiles he knew,
But ere the saddle was secured, before a girth was drawn,
The Rebel's forefoot split his skull -- they buried him at dawn!

Marora Mick, the half-caste, from the Flinders River came
To give the South-the-Border boys a lesson at the game;
But he got a roguish welcome when he entered New South Wales,
For The Rebel used his blood and brains to paint the stockyard rails!
And Mulga Jack came over from the Yuinburra side --
The horse was never foaled, they say, that Mulga could not ride;
With a mouth as hard as a miser's heart, a will like the Devil's own,
The Rebel made for the Stony Range, with the man who wouldn't be thrown;

The Rebel made for the Stony Range, where the plain and the scrub-land meet,
And the dead boughs cracked at his shoulder-blade, the stones leapt under his feet,
And the ragged stems of the gidyeas cut and tore as they blundered past . . .
And Jack lay cold in the sunset gold -- he had met with his match at last.
And once again the challenge rang, the bitterer for scorn,
And spoke the bold Glenidol boys, their jackets mutlga-torn:
'A week have we been hunting him and riding fast and hard
To give you all another chance -- The Rebel's in the yard!'

And the stockmen heard the challenge from the Cooper to the Bree;
But 'I'm getting old!' 'I'm getting stiff!' or 'I've a wife, you see!'
Came whispered to the border; and the horse they could not tame
Had saved Glenidol from disgrace and cleansed a sullied name.
But ere the reddening sun went down and night on the ranges broke
A stranger youth to the slip-rails rode, and fastened his horse and spoke
Softly and low, yet none so low but that every man there heard:
'I've come to tackle your outlaw colt,' -- and he looked as good as his word.

He bridled The Rebel in failing light, and saddled the colt and drew
The straps of his gearing doubly tight, and looked that his 'length' was true.
He mounted The Rebel and gave the word, and the clattering rails went down,
And the outlaw leapt at the open gate and into the shadows brown;
But he settled himself to the soothing voice and the touch of the fondling hand,
As it followed the curve of his arching neck from wither to forehead-band;
His flanks were wet with the fresh-sprung sweat, his shoulders lathered with foam,
And he bent to the bridle and played with the bit as he came at a canter home.

And the boys were dumb with wonder, and sat, and the Red Creek overseer
Was first to drop from the stockyard fence and give him a hearty cheer.
He raised his hat in answer and --- the golden hair floated free!
And the blue eyes lit with laughter as she shouted merrily:
'You can reach me down my bridle, give my girths and saddle back,
For the outlaw of Glenidol is a broken lady's hack!' 

Lots more on this site.

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-riding-of-the-rebel/