On the Mallee Highway.

[reynardo]

On the way back from sandypawozbun's place on the long weekend, we drove via the Mallee Highway. There were stacks of these things in patches on the way - sometimes cracked open, sometimes solitary. We thought at first that someone had dropped a case of rockmelons.
Our next thought was that aliens were leaving their eggs by the side of the road to entice travellers to look a little more closely than was safe.



The "eggs" were the size of small rockmelons, and when broken open had melon or pumpkin like seeds. Though you can't see the colour very cleary here, they were usually a green with yellow stripes, a little like a carnival squash, but totally rounded. Perhaps more like the Lambkin melon. The juvenile fruit had spikes all over them, though, like a prickly pear crossed with a puffer fish.

Any idea what they might have been? Edit - identified as Paddy melons or Camel Melons!!!

(Whatever they are, they've taught me that melons and pumpkins belong to the same family, Curcurbitacea.)