Jindabyne commemorates Banjo Paterson in Banjo Paterson Park where the town’s War Memorial and the memorial to Sir Paul Edmund Strzelecki are located.

In the A B Paterson archive in the National Library there is a photograph captioned The Colonel, the Poet and the Motor Car at Jindabyne. The Colonel was Lieutenant Colonel John McLean Arnott, Managing Director of Arnott’s biscuits and a distinguished long-serving Army officer and the poet was Banjo Paterson. In 1905 Banjo Paterson had taken part in the Dunlop Reliability Trial, driving from Sydney to Melbourne along the ‘old coach road’, now the Hume Freeway.

A year later in February 1906 Arnott and Paterson set out on another journey, this time travelling via the old gold road from Yass to Kiandra and on to Jindabyne before continuing to Cooma. Apparently horses towed the intrepid motorists across the Murrumbidgee River. 

Interestingly John Arnott was not promoted lieutenant colonel until 1912 and the caption may have been written many years later in deference to his distinguished First World War career. In 1906 people were probably much more interested in the car than the owner’s rank. The photograph was probably taken on the banks of the Snowy River in Old Jindabyne which now lies beneath Lake Jindabyne. Being keen skiers, descendants of J M Arnott were to play an ongoing role in the High Country. 

Jindabyne commemorates Banjo Paterson with its beautiful Banjo Paterson Park, a delightfully peaceful green space stretching down towards the lake. It is also the home of the Memorial to Sir Paul Edmund Strzelecki, the inspiration for many pilgrimages to Mt Kosciuszko.

Father and son James Spencer are believed to have taken Paterson into the mountains but from the Jindabyne side of the Great Dividing Range. According to my mother Elyne Mitchell, Banjo gave the Spencer family with whom he stayed at Waste Point an autographed copy of his poem and a photograph.