On a trip to Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, South Africa, in 2009 I had some spare time to walk around the town and admire the clean, bright ambiance of the place. I discovered that the town’s hot streets had been planted over the years with a variety of exotic trees, mostly Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus grandis). It was evident that the smooth pale bark of the Eucalyptus trees had become the irresistible surface for informal messages and designs. Some of the incisions reminded me of some of the more abstract scrapings of rock art and even of the Blombos Cave artefacts and engraved ochre dating to 70 000 years ago. This probably all goes to show that human beings, confronted with a flat surface, will find a way to draw on it!
The Uniting Reformed Church in Carnarvon was built in 1858. Note the many street trees.
Blombos Cave Artefact (via Wikipedia)
One of the engravings on the Carnarvon...
