Qualla: Boab Prison Tree, Wyndham https://qualla.com/boab-prison-tree-wyndham en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:27 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/5/p/boab-prison-tree-wyndham-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Boab Prison Tree, Wyndham https://qualla.com/boab-prison-tree-wyndham Boab Prison Tree, Wyndham: Introduction https://qualla.com/boab-prison-tree-wyndham/ Photo credit Djambalawa, CC BY-SA 3.0. The tree was already ancient when police first cut a door into its side. Adansonia gregorii — the boab, Australia's version of the African baobab — grows with extraordinary slowness, its massive swollen trunk accumulating girth across centuries. By the 1890s, the tree south of Wyndham was already over 2,000 years old, with a circumference of nearly 14 metres. Someone noticed that holes in the upper branches indicated the interior was hollow. An opening was cut. The tree became a prison.

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Image: Djambalawa | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/5/p/boab-prison-tree-wyndham-wp/qv5p-boab-prison-tree-wyndham-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Boab Prison Tree, Wyndham: The Hillgrove Lockup https://qualla.com/boab-prison-tree-wyndham/ Photo credit Djambalawa, CC BY-SA 3.0. Police on patrol from Wyndham in the 1890s were bringing Aboriginal prisoners to town for sentencing — long journeys through remote country with no formal facilities. The hollow boab on King River Road offered a practical solution. The opening cut into the trunk allowed Aborigina...

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Image: Djambalawa | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/5/p/boab-prison-tree-wyndham-wp/qv5p-boab-prison-tree-wyndham-the-hillgrove-lockup.mp3 0:06 2 full Boab Prison Tree, Wyndham: When the Tree Was Not Enough https://qualla.com/boab-prison-tree-wyndham/ Photo credit Djambalawa, CC BY-SA 3.0. A 1940 newspaper account adds a detail that shifts the story: when there were more prisoners than could fit inside the tree, they were chained to the outside. The account records the escape of one man chained there — described as tall, powerfully built, and apparently capable of ...

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]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/5/p/boab-prison-tree-wyndham-wp/qv5p-boab-prison-tree-wyndham-when-the-tree-was-not-enough.mp3 0:06 3 full Boab Prison Tree, Wyndham: The Tree That Really Was a Prison https://qualla.com/boab-prison-tree-wyndham/ Photo credit Djambalawa, CC BY-SA 3.0. A 1966 newspaper article noted that the more famous Boab Prison Tree at Derby — the one most tourists visited — had never actually been used as a prison. The article confirmed that the Wyndham tree had. This distinction matters: the Wyndham boab is not a myth or a legend or a tou...

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Image: Djambalawa | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/5/p/boab-prison-tree-wyndham-wp/qv5p-boab-prison-tree-wyndham-the-tree-that-really-was-a-prison.mp3 0:06 4 full Boab Prison Tree, Wyndham: Two Thousand Years of Witness https://qualla.com/boab-prison-tree-wyndham/ Photo credit Djambalawa, CC BY-SA 3.0. The tree still stands on King River Road, about five kilometres south of Wyndham's Diggers Rest area, near the Moochalabra Dam. Its circumference is approximately 14 metres. By any measure of time, the events of the 1890s are recent — the merest fraction of the tree's life. It wa...

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Image: Djambalawa | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:37 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/v/5/p/boab-prison-tree-wyndham-wp/qv5p-boab-prison-tree-wyndham-two-thousand-years-of-witness.mp3 0:06 5 full