The Rooster Tree

Fri 4 January 2013 7:45am by
Filed under: driving 

Those who regularly head up the Hume Freeway from Melbourne would know about this, but others may not: it’s the Rooster Tree.

The Rooster Tree

You’ll find it somewhere past Wandong and the exit for Clonbinane (which is one of those places I’ve never heard of apart from on the freeway exit signs), and it’s really only properly visible when heading northbound.

As you get closer, you’ll see it’s not really one tree, but a clump of trees.

One wonders if the owners of it know of its significance… my guess is yes, since it never seems to grow enough to look like anything other than a rooster.

Enough people know about the Rooster Tree that it’s got a fan page on Facebook — and in the aftermath of the horrific death and destruction of Black Saturday in 2009, many wondered if it had survived.

One more thing: local musician Mal Webb has written a very amusing song about the Rooster Tree:

(thanks to M for snapping the pic above as we drove up the other day)

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the RSS feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Bookmark and Share

Tags: ,

Comments

5 comments on The Rooster Tree

  1. Roger on Fri, 4th Jan 2013 7:53 am

    2. I’ve just driven from Melbourne to Sydney and back via the Hume.
    I’m afraid that I missed the Rooster Tree altogether.
    Reminds me of astronomers centuries ago who looked at a few stars in the sky and imagined scorpions, bulls and lions. Or is that analogy a bit unfair?

  2. malcolm on Fri, 4th Jan 2013 12:59 pm

    3. I’d never heard of it until my brother and his partner pointed it out to me a couple of years go – you can only see it on the way out of Melbourne, iirc. It may have also lost some definition as well, since in your image it looks more like a squirril … :)

  3. PaulK on Fri, 4th Jan 2013 4:29 pm

    4. I remember spotting it a few years ago, on my way to Canberra. It didn’t realise it was so popular

  4. Katie on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 8:30 am

    5. That’s one of my favourite landmarks on the Hume, except I call it Chicken Hill. I love that it has a song now!

  5. Kath Lockett on Thu, 10th Jan 2013 1:23 am

    6. Hah – you’re not going to believe this, but the very first thing I thought when I saw the photo was, ‘There’s a rooster shaped tree on the hill.’ Truly!

Leave a reply...
and if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!