John-

Nice summary! So you've been researching South Australia since at least 2002.

Hey, I tried to nail it with a somewhat tenuous thread to the minstrel song. It's the best I could come up with.

I do wonder what the source of such other Australian verses is such as:

I wish I was on Australia's strand...
With a bottle of whiskey in each hand...

Australia is a very fine place...
To get blind drunk's no disgrace...

Australia is a very fine land...
Full of spiders, fleas, and sand...

I don't find these verses listed in any of the volumes listed above. Maybe I channeled them from a shipload of drunken prospectors on their way to or from Australia in 1850!

Charley Noble