Bundeena Art Walk – 21 October 2021

I joined Bob for our weekly bushwalk. This time, with an adverse weather forecast (rain), we decided to visit Royal National Park near Bundeena. Our main purpose was to look for Aboriginal art.

We had a most interesting walk, finding a number of art sites. The first area we looked at was an open woodland, and here we examined all the overhangs we could see. Many of these had been used as occupation shelters – there was a lot of evidence of discarded shells, and I think three of them had hand stencils.

Here are some typical overhangs –

This one has a good midden –

Another overhang –

This small cave had good art –

I think the photo below has three partial hand stencils. Some are red and some are white.

The photo below has at least four hand stencils. We stood looking at it for a while and then they suddenly became apparent.

We then walked through some attractive open woodland.

And then through some slower heath.

The heath had some nice flowers – like this Fringe Lily –

And this Bearded Orchid –

And we saw a number of Dragon lizards –

And we saw lots of New Holland Honeyeaters.

Our nest art site was a large area of open rock platforms. The rock was covered in many engravings featuring human figures and various animals.

The photo below depicts a very large whale –

There was also some amazing Natural sculpture –

On a nearby rock shelf, we found one small engraving. Perhaps a fish –

On the walk back to Bundeena, we were fortunate to spot pair of Beautiful Firetails. One flew off, but the other continued preening for s short while.

And the forecast rain? We had a few spots lasting less than a minute. Not a bad day!