The Gum Tree
The cricket club has seen so many people come and go and has also seen many developments. There is one thing at the cricket club that has seen it all - the famous Gum Tree.
The Bundalaguah Cricket Club gum tree is estimated to be between 400-500 years old making it a shrub somewhere around 1500-1600 AD. It was standing tall long before the cricket club or even the nation was thought of. The gum tree spent hundreds of years shading the indigenous tribes of the community until white man settled the area in the 1840's. The gum tree has seen the area given it's name 'Bundalaguah' being aboriginal for 'The meeting of the waters.' The Macalister and the Thompson Rivers meet near Blythes Lane.
Since then, the gum tree has seen the English settlers develop the Bundalaguah community into farm land. The gum tree spent about 80 years shading cattle and sheep for the massive 'Heart Station' and later 'Quarry Park.' It wasn't until 1921 did the gum tree start providing shade for the Bundalaguah cricketers. You will note the size of the gum tree in the picture of the first Bundalaguah cricket team is the same size that it is today.
The gum tree has since seen the development of the main oval, the introduction of the second oval, the clubrooms go from a little wooden shed to a double storey pavillion, the construction of the training nets and finally the redevelopment of the clubrooms. It has seen every person that has gone through the front gate, either in horse and jinker in our early days of a single team or in the hi-tech vehicles of today to play for one of our many teams, either juniors or seniors.
It is the goal of all Bundy cricketers to 'hit one over the gum tree' but only a few have achieved it and love to tell the story.
So for close to 90 years the gum tree has spent it's life serving the Bundalaguah Cricket Club and is an icon of the club. To think it has still spent a vast majority of it's life as just another tree out in the middle of a paddock, shows how old it really is.