Something different

Bear with me while I attempt to explain this image.

The Rower and I went on a road trip to visit a museum in the tiny town of Cambrai, in  the Murray Mallee, a couple of hours north east of Adelaide.  The Murray Mallee is named after several species of Eucalyptus, which rarely grow more than 10 metres tall, and have huge underground lignotubers.

When the area was first settled in the mid-1800's it was mostly for pastoral use, but the main settlement came after World War 1 when the land was cleared by soldier settlers for cropping.  

The Mallee trees were felled, and the lignotubers dug up, so the land could be ploughed.  What to do with the roots?  Being thrifty folk, the roots were dried out and used to built sheds.  

So - now we get to the point - all the knobbly shapes you see in the walls of this shed are mallee roots.  They are iron hard, do not rot, and resist white ants and all other pests.  The use of roots for building was abandoned when corrugated iron became available.

The shed, at the back of the Cambrai Museum, is a very rare example of this lost art.  By the way, the museum was amazing - for such a small town of less than 300 people it is beautifully maintained and very interesting.