I've Been Everywhere was released by Lucky Starr in 1962 and has clocked up some amazing stats and interesting facts:

• The song entered the national Australian charts at #31 on 14 April 1962 and stayed in the charts for 16 weeks¹. It displaced Elvis Presley's Good Luck Charm to move to number 1.
  
  
• There are 94 locations mentioned in the song. A couple of locations are actually not towns - River Murray and Yarra Yarra are both waterways rather than towns. In our episodes, I'll visit Albury (as the biggest town or city on the Murray) and the Victorian hamlet of Yarra Junction (in lieu of Yarra Yarra). Also, Billabong in Victoria is an uninhabited region in Victoria's high country and so, instead, we'll visit Little Billabong in NSW.
  
  
• If I was to start in Oodnadatta (where the song starts) and then drive from one town to the next, using the lyrics as my map, I would travel just under 80,000kms to arrive in Wollondilly, the last town named in the song (to be precise, using the shortest distance, according to Google Maps, I would drive 79,237km). Adding in the distance it would take me to get to Ooodnadatta and home from Wollondilly, it would add another 2631km for a total distance driven of 81,868km. 
  
  
• Driving the 81,868km at 100km/h without stopping would take me 34 days, 2 hours and 40 minutes and 48 seconds!
  
  
• By driving from one town to the next, using the most direct route (according to the same Google Maps), you would cross a state or territory border 51 times. If I was adding the extra distance travelled to include the trip to and from my home location, it would add another two border crossings to bring the total to 53.
  
  
• The longest distance between towns, in the sequence they are presented, is 4109km from Ulladulla in New South Wales to Darwin in the Northern Territory.
  
  
• By comparison, the shortest distance is from Collaroy to Narrabeen - a distance of 1.9km. They are adjacent suburbs on the northern beaches of Sydney.
  
  
• Where there is more than one town with the same name (e.g. there is a Lismore in both Victoria and New South Wales), we have selected the largest town by population. The only exception was choosing Gingin in Western Australia over Gin Gin in Queensland because without that, the West doesn't get a mention in the song.
  
  
• The breakdown of towns by state / territory is NSW (58 towns), Qld (24), Vic (8), WA (1), SA (1), NT (1), ACT (1) with Tasmania missing out completely.
  
  
• The longest sequence of towns in the one state is 10 towns in NSW in a row - from Turramurra to Parramatta.
  
  
• Verses 1 to 3 of I've Been Everywhere each feature 23 location names, while verse 4 has 24 names. If you are doing the mathematics and thinking that only adds up to 93 locations, there is also an extra one - Oodnadatta - in the introduction.
  
  
• According to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia , there have been over 130 different and distinct versions of the lyrics, including the original Australian version we are celebrating here. Others include United States, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, Canada, Finland, Germany, Western Australia and even Wollongong (where Wollongong and Dapto are the only two locations used repeatedly through that version).
  
  
• Lucky Starr also released an EP in 1962 called Lucky's Been Everywhere containing four versions of the song - Australia, United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand.

¹   The Book: Top 40 Research by Steve Scanes - www.top40book.com.au
²    The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia - www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/asset/82613-ive-been-everywhere-lucky-starr