Ingham, a small town some 100km north of Townsville and well on the way to Cairns, is perhaps most famous for being the inspiration for the Australian folk song "A pub with no beer". In 1943, an Irishman by the name of Dan Sheahan rode 20 miles into town for a well earned drink and was just a little put out to discover that the town's only pub, the Day Dawn Hotel, had been emptied of its entire beer supply by a regiment of American soldiers who had been there the previous night. Walking in, exhausted from a hard days slog at whatever it was people did in small town Australia in the forties, Mr Sheahan greeted the publican as he always did and asked for a cold one.

"Sorry," she replied, "Beers off" - or words to that effect.

Many people of other nations, of course, would've screamed themselves hoarse at this unlikely piece of news, but Dan Sheahan had been in Australia long enough to become far too laid back for any of that nonsense - instead, he plonked himself down in a corner with some other beverage which was still available and wrote a poem. Later, it was adapted into one of the country's most iconic songs by a songwriter called Gordon Parsons and then made famous by singer Slim Dusty . These things always seem to require three people to get off the ground, for some reason. Today, the Day Dawn Hotel has been knocked down and replaced by the modern Lee's Hotel, and one of those little metal information plates which the Australians love so much is mounted outside to tell visitors the story of the pub with no beer.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.