A tribute in Norseman, Western Australia, to the 'ship of the desert' - the camel

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Although the camel is now considered ‘feral’ and a pest in outback Australia, settlement would have been much slower without the efforts of these great ‘ships of the desert’. In the opening up of Australia’s outback, camel teams and their mostly Afghan masters were responsible for the transportation of all sorts of goods. In particular wool was packed out on camels. The long trek from the sheep stations to the ports on the south coast could take up to a month. Incidentally a camel’s hump doesn’t store water as is often imagined but consists of fatty deposits which the camel can draw on in times of stress. It’s good to see the town of Norseman in Western Australia paying tribute to the humble dromedary. The material used so effectively is the ubiquitous corrugated iron which forms the roof of so many Australian homes. In the more arid areas of Australia, there are no big trees so timber for building is at a premium. Fences around backyards in those areas were often made of sheets of corrugated iron and in the cemetery at Menzies, even the tombstones are made of tin, made decorative with cut outs and twisted pieces.