Torryburn (Dungog)

Rural

The locality of Torryburn, about six kilometres south of East Gresford, is the setting for behind one of Australia’s most evocative poems: “My Country” by Dorothea Mackellar.

The poet, Dorothea MacKellar, was just a teenager when her family moved to the Torryburn district in 1898, coinciding with one of the worst droughts in the history of white settlement. The poem is believed to have been directly inspired by Dorothea witnessing the breaking of a drought when she was at Torryburn.

The first draft of “My Country” was written in England when Dorothea was feeling homesick for Australia. The original title for “My Country” was “Core of My Heart” , and was he title used when the poem was first published in 1908, in the London Spectator Magazine.