Mid Mountains Heritage Walk – 30 May 2019

Bob and myself were heading up the mountains to go to a similar area that we had visited twice before in recent weeks. On those occasions we had looked for aboriginal sites without any luck. This time we had done some more thorough research and we had a better idea where to look.

We had been very close to some sites on both our previous trips, and we had not looked carefully enough. We soon located an interesting Aboriginal art cave. It features about 6 sets of white hand stencils and some other art.

Near the cave was a small Aboriginal well.

We then left that site, crossed a creek and had begun exploring under some cliffs nearby for more possible art sites. The previous week, we had explored a little further up the valley, and the cliffs had been promising – but we had found no likely spots.

This time, the cliffs looked equally good – we walked through several overhangs that could have been art sites, but we could spot no art. We then climbed out onto a broad ridge.

On top were a series of large open rocky outcrops. A good place to look for sharpening grooves perhaps? All we found were some very nice tessellated pavements.

We next headed back to a rock platform area that we had only cursorily looked at. A more thorough examination revealed several sets of sharpening grooves and at least one well.

Another circular depression looked like it was man made.

Some more looked on similar rock outcrops and caves nearby revealed no more of interest.

We then headed to a road not too far away. Near this was a convict era cave. Known as the “Dark Cell”, it once could have been used as a prison cell for convicts, but is more likely an old store cut into the rock – perhaps for gunpowder used for blasting during road construction. It is thought to date from the 1830’s.