The weather forecast was not the best. It seemed like it would not be worthwhile heading up the Blue Mountains for our usual Thursday walk, so Bob and myself decided to stay closer to Sydney and do some shorter walks concentrating on searching for some Aboriginal heritage sites.
Our first stop was to check out a small cave I had heard about recently that was supposed to have some Aboriginal hand stencils.
We soon found a small cave that did have some white hand stencils. But we were not sure if they were old art or of Aboriginal origin.
We then drove a bit further and set off for to look for some more sites. We walked along a fire road and then deviated off it at ties to check out rock outcrops for sharpening grooves and engravings.
One of the first places we tried did have some sharpening grooves –
And nearby were these two lines. If have since been told that they are likely to be an Aboriginal engraving of a digging stick.
Further along was a large open rocky area. A fair bit of it was an amazing moss garden.
We searched the area for an art of sharpening grooves but could not find any.
At one spot, we thought we could see a large overhang below, so we scrambled down.
on the way down, we passed some nice rock orchids.
We then entered a large overhang. Lots of shell remains told us this was an occupation shelter.
We checked the walls and found some faint charcoal art.
And some boulders just outside had some sharpening grooves.
An interesting thing about this cave is that it is not close to the sea, so the shellfish must have been carried a long way.
We then explored the rest of the moss gardens.
We then continued along the fire road checking out some more possible sites.
We found another rocky outcrop. This had two sets of sharpening grooves.
And a bit further along we found more –
We then found a small overhang, just big enough for both of us to fit in to have lunch out of the rain.
We then walked back to Bob’s car and drove a bit more to another area. We intended to visit an engraving site that I had been to a few years earlier. Bob had not been to this impressive site.
On the way, we found a small area with sharping grooves –
Then we arrived at a bog rocky outcrop. It contained a lot of engravings raging from large to small, and quite a few sets of sharping grooves.
This is one of the smaller engravings – one of several sets of Kangaroo footprints –
Some sort of animal –
Perhaps a human figure –
Two large engravings of Kangaroo like figures –
Some of the engravings also had engraved dots in them.
This engraving is possibly two turtles –
This had been a very interesting day, and a good choice for an activity on a wet day. It is always rather special to visit places of such great cultural significance.