Home among the Gum trees

When you eventually get to see our photos of Ethiopia I dare say you'll be taken by how much some of the landscapes look like our own humble land some half a world away.

The reason for this is two fold. The first is the climate is strangely similar to southern Australia. It is dry, and mild, generally pleasant. A typical day here in Addis is much like a nice autumn or spring day in Melbourne. Warm in the sun, cool out of it. It gets cool at night, but not icy cold. It's kind of strange that a place located only nine degrees north of the equator could be compared to a place around 37 degrees south. But the altitude drops the temperature and the humidity. The only difference is that it doesn't get as much regular rain (although Melbourne might be bridging the gap in that area).

The other obvious reason is the presence of the good old humble eucalypt tree. I would say that there are more gum trees per square km here then there are back home. So how did the long tall streaky Aussie make it all the way to Ethiopia? Well when they wanted Addis Ababa to be the new capital, there were concerns that there would not be enough firewood to support the expected growth in population. Five million years of primate occupation in this part of the world had seen much of the local trees used to either burn or build. So they came up with the theory they needed a fast growing tree which had good firewood properties. The humble Aussie won the nod and as soon as they could issue separation notices to the relevant koalas, the gum tree was on its way to Africa.

Like all ecology decisions made on the basis of political convenience it turned out to be a bit of stuff up. The eucalypts were planted too close together so they didn't grow as intended while they sucked a ton of moisture out of the ground. In a country where it rains only certain times of the year, they couldn't really afford to lose their ground water to a bunch of thirsty but well intentioned Aussies. The gum trees have made the most of it and now dominate the countryside. It like Shepherds Bush, in fact, given the amount of shepherds here, and the amount of bush the gum's now occupy, it is shepherds bush! Debre Markos now looks like the Dandenongs.

It's happened in a few other places around the world too, such as Madagascar. Just don't let the koalas in on the secret. Not too many predators in this part of the world, and if they weren't so stoned on the gum leaves, they might just up and leave.