Bob and myself had been keen to look for Aboriginal sites along some of the more remote sections of the Oaks Fire Trail – which runs between Woodford and Glenbrook. The best way to travel along the fire trail is on mountain bike.
There are two well known sites – that are marked on the topographic map. These are “The Circles” and the “Bora Ground”. We wanted to look at these sites and also other close by, and also look for some art caves.
When we reached The Circles, at first we failed to find the well known engraving. I knew roughly where it was was, as I had seen and photographed it many times previously on mountain bike trips. We did tower find a lot of sharpening grooves.
In this area, there are extensive rock platforms, and many “wells”.
We had almost given up finding the circles engravings, when Bob spotted it. It was in the very place where we thought it was and had looked very carefully at. It now seems very hard to discern.
The next photo shows its position clearly with reference objects.
The Circles engraving seems to be unique – with four concentric circles. There seems to be nothing like it in other Aboriginal art sites in the Blue Mountains.
We then continued down the trail on our bikes. We did stop a few times to check out some other rock outcrops.
A large outcrop, near the Goonaroi Ridge turn off yielded a lot of sharpening grooves and some engravings.
It is common to find the sharpening grooves associated with rock pools.
This next rock pool was interesting. We first saw a few sets of faint sharpening grooves, but there was more.
There was also a set of engraved roo prints.
And nearby was another roo engraving –
We then continued on along the trail. Another site that had looked good on the air photos, was scrubby to get to, After looking for it and not finding a rock platform, I then headed back to the fire trail. Bob persisted and found the platform and did find some sharpening grooves.
Further down the trail, just before the steep descent down to Cliffs Red Wire Saddle, we stopped off and explore another large section of rock platforms.
This looks like a stone arrangement.
And these could be sharpening grooves –
There is also some interesting weathering –
We then checked out another spot further along without finding anything.
This brought us to the Bora Ground.
This is a very large open area of rock platforms. Close to the fire trail we spotted this stone arrangement –
We also found this stone arrangement. This is the sort of thing you might expect at a Bora Ground, but we thought it looked very recent. I cannot recall seeing it on previous trips, and it was not mentioned in some notes Bob had researched.
The whole area contains many rock pools – they would have been very useful wells for the Aboriginals.
Careful looking revealed some sharpening grooves –
We found a few more, but not many compared to the large size of the platforms.
we also found another stone arrangement –
We then continued along the trail. We did stop and spend a fair bit of time looking off the ridge for some art caves at one spot, but had no success in finding them. Perhaps another trip is warranted?
This trip had been very interesting. But we need to return.