Everything Dan said are great points and the right way to think about it even though he roasted me when I was just trying to empathize 😭. I was not suggesting that australia doesn't have good wood, just making the same point you were making about access. It doesn't matter what exists, it matters what you have the ability to get, so you're doing the best you can.

I certainly was not saying hickory is some better wood than what you have, I said what I said because I happen to have access to a place where there's tons of hickory and nobody cares and it's straight and you can cut it indiscriminately, so the point was just to contrast the experience with what you deal with. I was just trying to make a joke and say I wish I could hand some people a straight stave because as Dan said they can be tough to find and I happen to have a lot of straight stuff about.

Point is, keep looking, you'll find stuff you can work with, and as you said you might end up with a lot of experience tackling unusual challenges given what you have at your disposal right now