Summary: Aboriginal engraving near Bairne Trig (West Head) with figures incuding a man or woman, and a koala.

South west of the Bairne Trig Station is an Aboriginal engraving site, first documented by W.D. Campbell in 1898. While the site was described as having extensive views in the 1890s and even as recently as thr 1970s, the rock is now surrounded by trees and dense scrub.

AWAT2847 LR Bairne Trig engraving site

As the bottom of the group is what McCarthy described as a koala, with an “angled convex back on broad body, concave belly line continued upward for 2′ above the animal to represent the trunk of a tree, rounded projecting rump”. (Campbell identified this as an emu.)

AWAT2843 LR Bairne Trig engraving site

The site also has what is likely to be a human figure, although Campbell suggested it was potentially a deity figure. McCarthy describes it as possibly a woman, as there is an indication of a breast on the figure’s left hand side, although the figure is drawn with a penis (there are other examples of hermaphroditic carvings in the area).

AWAT2832 LR Bairne Trig engraving site

Near this figure are a number of boomerangs and shields (some of the shields are covered by vegetation).

AWAT2814 LR Bairne Trig engraving site

While McCarthy suggests the figure may be a woman, he also interprets the site as representing “a man possibly engaged in a koala bear hunt”.

Engraving Bairne Trig Bairne Trig engraving site
Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to Hiking the World, and receive notifications of new posts by email. (A hike is added every 1-2 weeks, on average.)

Join 1,149 other subscribers

0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Aboriginal Sites by National Park

A review of different techniques for photographing Aboriginal rock art. This includdes oblique flash, chain and planar mosaic imaging which combines hundreds of overlapping photos.
The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area protects over 3,000 known Aboriginal heritage sites, and many more which are yet to be recorded. This area includes the Blue Mountains National Park, Gardens of Stone, Wollemi National Park and Yengo National Park.
Yengo National Park was an important spiritual and cultural place for the Darkinjung and Wonnarua People for thousands of years, and 640 Aboriginal cultural sites are recorded in the park and nearby areas.
Located to the north-west of Sydney, just south of the Dharug and Yengo National Parks, Maroota has a high concentration of (known) Aboriginal sites. Many more Aboriginal heritage sites are located in the Marramarra National Park. The original inhabitants of the area were the Darug people.
Over 40 sites have been recorded within the park; many were located along the river bank and were flooded by the building of the weir in 1938.