Even more amazing art
Tuesday 12th May - Mt Borrodaile
Julia: Today, we went with a guide from the camp, Amanda, out into the wilderness to see some rock art. We drove about 30 minutes along a dirt track in an open top land cruiser. Once we had stopped we had a More...
Tuesday 12th May - Mt Borrodaile
Julia: Today, we went with a guide from the camp, Amanda, out into the wilderness to see some rock art. We drove about 30 minutes along a dirt track in an open top land cruiser. Once we had stopped we had a 2 kilometre walk through rough land that passed through some very wet areas, where I could see our guide checking for crocodile. She said there weren’t any there because she would be able to smell them. I checked too as we went along. I had to remove my shoes and socks for part of the walk and wade through some shallow swampy water. I was on full alert looking out for snakes as this was a typical area that snakes loved. We climbed over rocks until we found the caves and walls where the rock art was painted. There was so much of it and it all looked so recent that, once again, I found it hard to believe and comprehend that it was anything up to 20,000 years old. There were many hand stencils here plus the usual paintings of food sources. We walked through many narrow and long passage ways, some of them very dark to get to other parts of the rocks where we saw many more paintings. The rock formation here was quite incredible and just like natural stone houses with long corridors and rooms. An ideal habitat for the aboriginal tribes. As we walked through the narrow rocks our guide was tapping the rocks with a stick to make sure there weren’t any snakes. I just kept a keen eye on things and prayed we wouldn’t see anything. Once we arrived at the main painting area we were constantly attacked by huge numbers of mosquitoes and there were really trying our patience. We could feel that we were getting bitten even though we had so much mosquito spray on.
We walked back the same way as we had walked to the rocks passing the swampy area again and through the wooded wilderness for the 2 kilometres back to the car. I was amazed that we hadn’t seen any snakes and also very relieved!
In the afternoon, we decided that we would just chill in the safely of our tent away from the mossies. We realised that we had been bitten really badly; Jules had about a hundred bites on his back and I had about 50, plus they had bitten us on our necks and arms. Fortunately, they had only bitten Jamilah a few times. They were very viscous and had bitten us through our clothing.
Later on in the afternoon we caught our light aircraft back to Darwin which took an hour. There was a lot of burning of bush in the area and the smog and haze was really bad. It seemed such a shame to see so much pollution, but that’s the way the land has been managed for generations.
***** Julian: We were told that the area around Mount Borrodaile had some of the oldest and. best rock art in the world and after this morning i have no problem believing that at all. Also the sheer quantity around here is amazing - we were told last night of a lady who has been here for a total of 21 days so far, and is coming back later in the year for another stay, and she has been visiting art sites every day, all day and has yet to visit the same site twice. Masses of years of art and clearly a flourishing society with rich natural resources to afford so much time to create it all. I could try and describe the art, but the pictures probably do it better than I could; the area around though I can describe. We drove for about 30 minutes into the bush on a dirt track that at times was only just visible as a track - we clearly were going to be the only ones here today. When we stopped we walked for about 2 km though the bush and over the rocks - I was amazed at Jungle Jane, i.e. Julia, who would normally have been quite freaked by it all, yet calmly took off her shoes and socks to wade through the swampy areas - as or guide, Amanda, said she had not seen any other guests go bare footed along with her through this area. When we got to the rock area where the paintings were it was quite a sight - like above ground catacombs, with the rocks riven through with caves and passages, apparently created by sea erosion about 1.5 Billion years ago . We walked through several of these passages to get to our first art spot - just amazing as the photographs testify.
We walked up the hill further and through some more passages to get to a second area of rock art. This particular set was stumbled upon by chance when a lost buffalo was being searched for. It is an indication of the sheer amount of art in the area - you only have to walk a small way, look around and there in the slightest of open areas is some more art - not always a full wall’s worth, but nearly always some. At this second stop the mosquitos were quite fierce, but unfortunately I didn’t realise this at first as I had covered my self liberally with mosquito repellent - this may have worked on my open skin, but that didn’t matter to the mossies who used my back like a pin-cushion - it is no exaggeration to say I had over 100 bites on my back when we got back to the camp and I took off my shirt - itchy to say the least.
On the way back from the art and as we were approaching the swampy area again, Julia asked Amanda whether there were likely to be any crocodiles in the area to which Amanda responded that quite probably there were. However, she assured us that it was no issue as she could smell crocodiles - this is not something I had heard before, but apparently is something all Aborigine children are taught to do when about Jamilah’s age. Amanda explained that she would happily swim in billabongs that crocodiles use - she would first spend about 5 minutes on the bank smelling for crocs and if she didn’t smell anything then in she and her friends would go.
Another interesting snippet was the Wattle tree root that Amanda showed us. These are often curved into natural boomerang shapes and are used as such with just a little whittling and sanding to create the perfect boomerang.
Having been attacked by mosquitos in the morning and having seen a fair amount of cave art over the last three days, we didn’t go out again after lunch and waited for our flight back to Darwin at 4pm along the coastline, which allowed us to see the vastness of the wetlands in Arnhem Land and Kakadu. As we approached Darwin we could see all the buildings of this small city clustered around the peninsular it is built on, but there was a a haze caused from all the controlled burnings in the area which meant it was all very indistinct; however, that haze did create a lovely red sunset in compensation.Back
