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An unexplained phenomenon’: the Australian obsession for putting stuff in trees
There are trees hung with hats, bras, mugs, bikes and teddy bears located throughout regional Australia. But why do we do it?by Aston Brown
Beside a desolate stretch of outback road, a gum tree is covered in bras.
A few hours south, another is draped with old pairs of shoes. To the west, on banks of the Murray Darling River, hundreds of pairs of thongs are nailed to sawn-off tree trunks. Locals call them “thong trees”.
And more than 1,000km north-east, at end of a gravel road a few hours west of Brisbane, five rusty push bikes and two pairs of shoes hang in an old gum tree. A sign nailed to the trunk calls it the “Onya Tree” – short for “goodonya”, or “good on you”.
“Some can be explained, others cannot,” says the Canberra historian and author Nichole Overall, who investigated the origins of hundreds of teddy bears nailed to trees along a highway outside Australia’s capital.
After years of wading through urban legends behind the bears origins, Overall settled on a roadside memorial with a teddy bear following a 1987 road death as the most likely cause.
“But then it goes to, why? Why did they suddenly proliferate and for so long?” she says. “It remains an unexplained phenomenon.”
Well-Illustrated Article Continues:
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...australia-menindee-canberra?CMP=share_btn_url