So there was this young Kamilaroi guy getting around 150 years ago who liked to climb trees and carve designs into the bark. Sometimes he took his firestick and burnt holes into the wood as well. He would leave his signature on the very tops of the trees so everyone would know whose work it was. These wood slashes cut with a piece of glass helped him climb up very high as he had a good head for heights. Many years afterwards the new white landlords paid Chinese work gangs to ringbark the land. The sculptured trees were killed before the bark could grow over the carvings left by the young artist. And so they remain frozen in time, unseen and unadmired. One day a century and a half later a woman mustering sheep noticed the strange marks on the old dead trees. Many had fallen and decayed but a few were still standing, proud and defiant. This woman became a great fan of the agile young artist’s designs even though she had white skin. It was said around town she had a black heart but she didn’t give a rats what people said and went on her merry way. She tried to show the sculptured trees to other people black or white but they were not interested or said it was too far too come. So the woman took photos of these lovely haunting trees and put them on a website instead … the end
