Our earliest cottages were ‘wattle and daub’ – battens with mud – roofed with timber shingles and canvas. Unsecure and weather-frail the settlers pined for the qualities of homes left behind: solid brick walls with slate roofs, and they set about obtaining it. However, the desire for a ‘solid home’ met with difficulties for first settlers. Having exhausted the cabbage tree palms, they found the Angophoras and Eucalypts too tough for their 18th C English axes.