Curiosity Rocks, Lake Jindabyne

The Rocks have not looked like this since Lake Jindabyne started filling in 1967, it shows the impact of the current drought cycle that began in 1996 compare. The dam was at below 50% capacity when this was taken with a 19-35 mm lens and polarising filter. With only average snow falls this year, the inflow will have little impact after draw down for hydro power, irrigation and environmental flow for the Snowy River below the dam. more

Those snags in the water are festooned with line and lures, some of which are now part of my angling history display in the den. Some of the old classic lures which haven't seen the light of day for 20-30 years were cleaned up and given a swim with new hooks and still worked well.

I guess the Rocks looked much like this before the dam when the valley was a pioneer grazing community, home of The Man from Snowy River, and even before then when the Ngarigo people roamed here and visited the high country each summer for the bogong moth feasts.

As the weather heats up in October, the moths, Agrotis infusa, more migrate to the cooler mountains to aestivate, the reverse of hibernation, in their thousands, up to 17,000 per square metre, in the cool dark cracks and crevices in the great boulders and scree slopes. They were easily smothered with smoke and scraped off the rocks into nets and skins then carried back to camp, roasted and eaten whole or pounded to a paste, made into flat cakes and cooked on hot stones. High in protein and fat, their taste was described as rich and sweet and similar to roasted walnuts.

This abundance of food encouraged great inter-tribal gatherings for trade and exchange, feasting, ceremonies and dispute settlement. Early European observers commented on the people going up onto the mountains looking gaunt and miserable from the winter and returning after a few months sleek and fat, even the dogs were fat! Not forgetting that the mountain pigmy possum, Burramys, is also partial to a feed of bogongs.

Recently however it has emerged that the moths may contain traces of arsenic probably from insecticide absorbed by the larvae which feed on the roots of pasture plants, so recipes for bogong moth omelette should be treated with caution.

Quinkan Country - Kuku Yalangi

Australia provides the only example where the hunting-and-gathering way of life has dominated an entire continent up to modern times. This way of life continues to play a significant role in the occupation of the continent, particularly in its northern and central sections.

Australian archaeological sites provide a unique and important record of human occupation over a range of environments spanning at least 40,000 years. Such sites are particularly significant in documenting the special ways in which Aboriginal people adapted to changing climates, as well as to the wide range of environmental situations in different parts of the continent.

The Quinkan region, near Laura, in the south-east part of Cape York, contains many galleries of well-documented rock paintings in shelters associated with the cliffs and river valleys that dissect the sandstone plateaux. One of the sites, the so-called "Early Man" site, contains one of the oldest securely-dated rock art sites in Australia. The artwork at this site consists of pecked and engraved motifs, including animal tracks, sealed by an archaeological deposit dated by radiocarbon dating to over 15,000 years before present.

My son photographed this location on his recent solo expedition to Cape York.

Rock engravings, Carnarvon Gorge

Hidden in the rugged ranges of Queensland’s central highlands, Carnarvon Gorge features towering sandstone cliffs, vibrantly coloured side gorges, diverse flora and fauna and Aboriginal rock art. This is a powerful womens' fertility site - I'm not sure the word erotic even applies - ultimately it's the fertility of the earth that we are seeing here; note also the engraved net motif which occurs elsewhere within this massive art complex as a white painted image among red hand stencils.

Axe grinding grooves

Look closely and you can see the axe grinding grooves in the sandstone bedrock in one of the many dried out rain water pools adjacent to Mt Banks in the Blue Mountains National Park. Almost every depression contains multiple grooves which have been revealed by the continuing drought.

Water in the pools was used to whet the grinding process to polish and shape the axe blank and a man could sit for many hours sharpening a fine axe. Each groove represents the manufacture of a single stone axe head which was then hafted to a wooden handle. The earliest grooves may date from around 14,000 years before present. Stone axes continued to be made until soon after white settlement in 1788 when they were swiftly replaced by steel hatchets.

Mt Banks was named by the explorer George Caley in 1804 to honour his patron Sir Joseph Banks the noted English botanist, and marks the furthest westward point of his futile attempt to cross the Blue Mountains.

Prehistoric rock engraving

I rediscovered this hand sized circle engraved into the sandstone under a layer of rotting leaves on the cliff edge at Katoomba. After trying some ordinary shots for about half an hour, the late afternoon sun slanted through the cloud for a few seconds and revealed it in relief. The second photo shows the view from the cliff edge with the engraving in the foreground in front of the rocky spire. You can stand on top of the spire, carefully, and look out over the vast space to the cliffs on the other side of the valley at Sublime Point - breathtaking.

The Gundungurra people occupied this part of the Blue Mountains in the recent past and it may date from that period of more intense use beginning around 3-4,000 year ago, or from the end of the last ice age around 10,000 years before present when regular seasonal use appears in the archaelogical record or even from a period of earlier intermitent occupation around 22,000 years BP.

Engravings like this one were made with stone tools by first pecking a series of holes and then abraiding the connecting walls, you can see a small remaining section of the left. It is one of only two known circular stone engravings in the Blue Mountains and like many religious objects its simple form belies its deeply sacred nature.