Summary: The Bulgandry Art Site Aboriginal Place is one of the most-visited engraving sites around Sydney. It's named after the prominent Bulgandry Man engraving.

One of the most-visited engraving sites around Sydney, the Bulgandry Art Site Aboriginal Place is situated just off Woy Woy Road (the site is well sign-posted). A short walking trail leads to the engraving site. A wooden boardwalk circles the main site, with interpretative signage.

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There are a number of figures – most of them located quite close together on the main rock platform.

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The site is named after “Bulgandry Man”: a large engraving of a man thought to represent an ancestral hero, depicted with an impressive headdress. He holds a round object in his right hand, in his left hand is a boomerang or crescent-shaped object and across his waist is a decorated club. Bulgandry Man is stepping into a long canoe (or what is thought to be a canoe) – a motif rarely seen in engravings.

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Bulgandy Man has been extensively photographed and documented: the photo from Ian Sim (below) clearly shows him holding a crescent-shaped object. ‘Bulgandry’ means ‘boomerang in hand’, although the object may not be a boomerang.

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Overlapping a six metre long canoe is an engraving of a kangaroo.

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Nearby is another kangaroo, with a small figure next to its tail.

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There are a few fishes and an odd shape among the larger engravings.

Another fish has been speared.

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At one end of the rock platform are some axe grinding grooves.

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Just below the main site, down a rough track on a separate rock platform, is what McCarthy and Sim describe as a dolphin – a “fine animated figure swimming with its head upward”. It’s also been described as more likely to be a shark, with a “rounded dorsal fin and broad belly” as well as a “heterocercal caudal fin” (Sydney Rock Art).

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About 150m to the north-east, on a long ledge, are a couple more figures. A carving of wallaby is very worn and hard to see (or photograph), and next to it is a more obvious small swamp-hen.

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Aboriginal Sites by 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.
Over a hundred Aboriginal sites have been recorded in the Hornsby region, with many of these in the Berowra Valley National Park and around the suburb of Berowra.
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.