Rooty Break
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Contents
Location
Deep in the forest of the Errinundera Plateau.
] Sacred Tree
GUISHIN
Rooty Break
The town of Rooty Break is in the Errinundera Plateau’s forest heartland. It is only short distance to other famous plateau cities, towns and villages: Coast Range, Goonmirk Rocks, First Creek Falls, Fanny Moo, Cobb Hill, Kanooka Creek and Sassafras Basin. The geographic name of so many towns in Errinundera is evidence of the people’s deep attachment to their environment. In a skywalk village like Rooty Break you could walk right below it without realising it’s there.
Like other Plateau Folk the Rooties are extremely communitarian in their outlook. There is a deep belief in a collective responsibility for the welfare of everybody. If my neighbour is down and out then so am I. This collectivism goes hand in hand with a virulent disrespect for hierarchy and anything that smacks of wankery. By all means be as eccentric as you like but don’t make out that, by being so, you are better than the next person.
If you have the good fortune to visit Rooty Break you will be billeted with one of the local families in the tree house. The food may be stodgy but, really, it’s the company that makes the meal. You will find the Rooties the most charming and generous of hosts.
A word of warning though: don’t mention free market politics. Especially if you are upset by the sight of naked people rolling about the floor, laughing their arses off.
] Frosty Hollow
Frosty Hollow, located on the outskirts of Rooty Break, was once the designated national stadium and the official ground for all Errinundera’s home games during NS World Cup qualifying. This is no longer the case and a new stadium has been built. Like the B Triple R in Bemm River, fans enter this new stadium through its roof. The two stadia, however, could hardly be more dissimilar. Whereas the B Triple R is in the middle of a river, Frosty Hollow is well and truly landlocked. The notable thing about new arena is that, instead of being built above ground, it has been sunk into the ground.
“Errinundera is forest and forest is Errinundera,” explains local construction manager, eservat, “and so the idea was for the magnificent trees of the Hollow to utterly dominate the view from inside the stadium. The outside edge of the roof is only half a metre above the surrounding ground. From inside, what you see is the illusion of a forest growing out of the roof. The largest trees are over 120 metres high and have a diameter of nearly 20 metres. Compare this with the height from the playing surface to the roof, which is about 70 metres. You get the impression of being in the very heart of the forest.”
News Media
Daily newspaper with pretensions: Rooty Break International Herald Tribune, "Your local paper with an expansive view."
A note on the tree in the photos
In real life the tree no longer exists. It was located about 80 km east of Melbourne and I visited it three times during the 1980s and 1990s. The top photo is from my first visit - in 1984. The small hole in the side belies how hollow it was inside. Light came in from where the top had broken off. On the fourth visit a couple of years ago the ground where it had been was bulldozed. Debris could be seen in the undergrowth. A ranger told me afterwards that it had disintegrated and collapsed. That would have been an awesome thing to see.
