Actually a member of the Eucalyptus family, this tree was used for ten years from 1868 by Edy Bishop, the wife of a local grazier to press cheeses made from milk given to her husband as payment for services rendered.

The large notches that are still clearly visible in the now dead tree stump, are where she wedged long poles from which she hung weights. With freshly made cheeses placed underneath this simple but effective fulcrum, Mrs Bishop was able to extract excess moisture from the cheese so that they were ready for sale.

The ingenious process stopped in 1878 when the Bishop family moved out of the area, but this interesting relic of early life in the Lower Flinders Ranges is worth the short excursion off the main highway, a couple of kilometres north of Melrose.