I had suggested a trip to Bob and Dog to visit some Aboriginal art caves along the Springwood Ridge, north of the old St Columbus Seminary at Winmalee. So we travelled to Springwood and then turned off along Hawkesbury Road and took the road to the seminary. The seminary has now been repurposed as a catholic high school and we would have to pass through private land to get to Springwood Ridge.
We were encouraged by a “welcome” sign, a short way along the road, but a bit further along was a “Trespassers Prosecuted” sign. Not soo good! We continued to some old sandstone building and asked a groundsman if there was access to the fire trail. He told us no access was allowed, so we had to start instead from the end of White Cross Road.
We crossed a creek and climbed up scrubby ridge that leads to Springwood Ridge. Then we could look for the first site.
Site 1
This was a small overhang with some charcoal art.
Here are some enhanced versions using iDStretch on my phone –
It’s hard to work out what the motifs are. Possibly a human figure.
Site 2
The second cave was not too far away, and just above a creek.
This is also a small overhang and does have some graffiti.
But the cave also has some faint red ochre hand stencils.
They are quite hard to discern.
This is where the iDStretch software really works well, revealing quite a few hand stencils too hard to see with the unaided eye.
This panel has five stencils –
There is one stencil just below the graffiti –
Probably a faint stencil here –
And here is a closer view of the left side of the panel with five stencils, showing two of them –
We walked back via the fire trail through Blue Gum Swamp Creek. This is a very pleasant fire road.
The puncture marks in the Blue Gum are made by gliders seeking food (the sap)
Brush Turkey
Blue Gums
Eastern Yellow Robin
