I joined Bob and Douglas for a very interesting walk in the upper parts of the Lane Cove Valley looking for two Aboriginal art sites.
We set off from Cheltenham and followed a track at first. Then we left the track and crossed a shallow valley. The first site we were looking for was an occupation cave with some ochre art.
We located the cave without too much looking as there were not too many cliff lines to check.
The cave was a well protected overhang and it would have provided good shelter in rain. As well as Aboriginal occupation, it was probably used during the depression and perhaps later. It had a rough fireplace.
There was a lot of charcoal graffiti on the walls, and also some ochre art.
Its a bit hard to work out what is depicted in the ochre here –
I think there is a partial hand stencil in the upper part of the photo below. It is visible in the iDStretched version.
This panel seems to just have charcoal graffiti –
This section could have some white ochre –
We found an old coke bottle –
We left the cave and climbed up through woodland to the ridge above.
We soon met a track which we followed a short way.
We then arrived at some sports fields, and there was a cafe. So we stopped for tea and coffee.
We then left the spots fields and followed another track system. Here Doug is flicking off some leaches –
We also spotted a Swamp Wallaby –
We followed the track down to a creek.
We then looked around some small bluffs for an Aboriginal engraving site. Bob spotted it –
It is supposed to depict the top part of human figure with arms outstretched. What we found was certain an old engraving – but it was very hard to make out what it was. But looking at an article in a scientific journal shows how it was drawn in 1958 by archeologist Fred McCarthy. It is pretty basic –
We then decided to visit an old engraving site at Conscript Pass. On the way we spotted this Crimson Rosella –
At Thornleigh Oval, there is a track that visits Lorna Pass, and from that track, another track descends down Conscripts Pass to the Lane Cove River. This track is part of the Great North Walk.
This site has some of the interesting history of these passes. Lorna Pass is named after Lorna Brand, who raised money during the Great Depression for unemployed to be given work building tracks in the area. One of the tracks that was built goes down a cleft known as Conscripts Pass, and this is where the engravings are found.
The above photos shows the words “Conscripts Pass”, a down arrow and some initials.
Nearby is another engraving depicting the Premier of the time, Bertram Stevens, and a caricature.
From here, we walked down to the Lane Cove River. Bob and Doug then walked back to Cheltenham, while I left them and walked back up, and then to Thornleigh Station.
It had been a short but interesting walk, and a good choice during wet weather – although this did mean a lot of leaches.