This was a pleasant day of bushwalking with Bob in the Blue Mountains. Not long before I had been on an overnight camping trip to Lawson Castle. On the trip we had found some Aboriginal engravings, and two of the party – Rik and Dave Os, also found some cave art and sharpening grooves. I was keen to go back and see if the whole of the castle from Blue Mountain to where we had camped had more Aboriginal sites. We didn’t expect that to take too long as it is not far, so after that we planned to walk out to a more remote rock platform that I had observed on online air photos. It too may have some art.
Aboriginal art
So we headed in Bob’s car for Lawson and soon were at the barrier on the fire road that extend north from Queens Road. We then climbed Blue Mountain. This did not take very long – only a few minutes. It has a trig, but the views are a bit filtered by vegetation.
We then started walking along the ridge. We found a very faint track for most of the way. The going was fairly easy.
Also there were some nice rock outcrops.
We looked at these for signs of Aboriginals – either art of sharpening grooves.
It was not too far away from where we had camped on the earlier trip that we spotted some sharpening grooves –
We then descend to a lower cliffline and looked for art sites. Rik had told me about a site he had found with a partial handprint and some charcoal art. We soon found this cave.
Two fingers are visible in the hand stencil –
Below and left of the handprint was some more faint charcoal art.
We then continued around the cliffs, but found no more art sites. After that we climbed up to the campsite area. Not far from that were the Emu print engravings –
And then we descended some more to the fire road. We now walk along it, and out along a ridge to a more remote high point. From the high point we obtained good views of Wentworth Creek, but we found no more art or sharpening grooves.
We found a shady place for lunch, and then walked back to Bob’s car.
It was still relatively early, so we thought a visit to the Deanei Reserve at Springwood would fill out the day.
This reserve lies a short way along Hawkesbury Road at Springwood. As its name says, it has a nice stand of Blue Mountains Blue Gum (Eucalyptus deanei).
This small reserve is well worth visiting.