Balls Head (Waverton)

This Aboriginal engraving site was uncovered during renovations at the Coal Loader development, a Sydney industrial site at Balls Head (in Waverton). Part of the site have been destroyed, but a large whale with a man inside it remains and is protected by a fence.

The whale and man and engraving were thought to represent either a magician performing magic to entice whales to become stranded – or a man who has entered the body of a stranded whale to cure an illness.

A second “man-like figure” was recorded inside the whale in 1963. A new article in 2008 suggested that this second figure inside the whale appeared to be a dog or a horse: if correct, this would indicate the local Cammeraygal people were still carving at the site after the arrival of white settlers in 1788.