Music / music video / Travel

At The Top Of The World In The Land Down Under

Timothy Price43 Comments

“From Maxy to Billie T”

On November 25, 2025, Miriam with Out n’ About posted The DMax stops in Charters Towers. I thought their unplanned adventure was an incredible story. When I finished reading the post, a chorus popped inot my head, and I jotted down:

Now we’re driving around in a rented Yaris

Looking for a brand new caris

At the top of the world in the land down under

Life’s twists and turns, one has to wonder

I sent the chorus to Miriam and asked her if she could rewrite the story of the broken DMax and finding its replacement into lyrics. She sent me the lyrics. I added the chorus and arranged the lyrics into an intro, chorus, fives versus, two bridges, a reprise, and an outro. With the help of AI music, I came up with a song that we all liked. Miriam named the song “From Maxy to Billie T.”

Charters Towers and Townsville City

The grand perspective

Miriam and Doug have been driving around Australia with a camp trailer in tow for several years. Miriam writes about their adventures and publishes them in a travel magazine and on her blog. She found some time to make a video for the “From Maxy to Billie T” adventure, sent me the video, and I added the music to her video.

Putting the lyrics and music together, and then adding the music to the video were fun collaborations, and I wanted to share the results with everyone.

Maxy to Billie T
By Miriam Blacker

[Intro]
We’re tripping Outback Queensland
In our DMax and mobile home 
The car’s driving brilliantly 
but little did we know 
That testing times would find us 
And we’d need a bloody tow.

[Chorus]

Now we’re driving around

In a rented Yaris

Looking for a brand new caris

At the top of the world

In the land down under

Life’s twists and turns, one has to wonder

[Verse 1]
We travelled far and wide
on remote roads and dirt tracks 
To Karumba, Burketown, Lawn Hill and more 
Our adventures never set us back. 
Until one day it found us 
We were heading for the north
Charters Towers, bound for Townsville 
The engine coughed and burst. 

[Verse 2]
Not really a blow up 
more a splutter and a clank
Doug hoped it’d be minor 
I never thought we’d need a bank. 

[Verse 3]
Trouble found us but we had help
I rang the RACQ
A nice guy called Jay
He saved the day 
towed our van back to Charters, 
and our DMax too. 
But the Dodgy servo back in Charters
I won’t name them though I should
They took one look at our Vic plates
And tripled the quote, bloody crooks! 

[Bridge 1]
Your engine’s buggered 
It’s no good, they said 
as they trashed the dash 
bust the ignition barrel.
Our car’s as good as dead. 

[Verse 4]
We’re guttered and caught
We’re shocked, holy schmuck
What the hell do we do 
With a van and no truck.
There’s no rentals in town. 
Townsville’s more than 100kms away. 
We can take the train, 
there’s gotta be a way. 
Kindness always finds us
A serendipitous chat in a pool
leads to a ride to Townsville
With a couple oh so cool.

[Reprise]
There’s no rentals in town.
Townsville’s more than 100kms away.
We can take the train,
there’s gotta be a way.
Kindness always finds us

[Chorus]

Now we’re driving around
In a rented Yaris

Looking for a brand new caris

At the top of the world

In the land down under

Life’s twists and turns, one has to wonder

[Bridge 2]
Now we’re in the Mazda sale yard 
Craig seems a real nice guy 
But is he a shark in sheep’s clothing 
who wanted us to buy
But our dealing isn’t finished
We know now what’s for us
We haggle back and forth for days 
The BT’s quite a bus. 

[Verse 5]
When we tried to buy the car, 
to test pay a dollar for the truck 
The accountant laughed
Craig whatcha doing
Ya can’t sell a BT for a buck! 
Here’s a lesson that we learned 
don’t drive more than three hours 
make sure you arrive by 3pm 
Don’t blow up Number 3 Cylinder, 
especially near Charters Towers. 

[Outro]
Finally we’re leaving town 
Billie T’s our smooth new ride
We’ve said goodbye to Maxy
now we’re heading Southside. 

Now we’re driving around
At the top of the world
In a new bus that is perfect for us
Billie-T is really nifty
To wander in the land down under
Given life’s twists and turns
one simpy has to wonder

43 thoughts on “At The Top Of The World In The Land Down Under”

  12. Hi Tim, what a wonderful and unexpected collaboration this turned out to be. Thanks for your “chorus” comment and encouragement last year that lead to me writing this song. And for the catchy music that pulled it all together. It was a fun ride wasn’t it! And it turned our misadventure (which was pretty stressful at the time), into something memorable.

    Thanks again for sharing our tale here which I will eventually reblog, once I catch up on my overseas posts and magazine deadlines. Life is keeping me on my toes lately. Cheers from down-under!

    Reply

    • It was a wonderful collaboration. If you survive the misfortune, you often have a good story to tell. And you had a great story to tell. Thanks, Miriam.

      Reply

  14. Bang up job Tim!!! They are really improving this form of AIband your images fit perfectly with the storyline. Maybe in the future news will all be sung to us, now that would be fun ha!

    Reply

    • There was no AI used in making the video. The video was put together by Miriam, and then I added the track and the ticker tape with the lyrics to her video. AI was only used for the music. Thanks, Brian.

      Reply

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