One of two signposted Aboriginal rock art site sites in the Mount Morgan section of Carnarvon National Park, the Kookaburra Cave has both stencils and intricate carvings. The cave gets its name from a stencil that resembles a kookaburra.
The “kookaburra” is in fact a hand stencil.
… it might be remarked that a small engraved and painted site on Marlong Creek is known locally as ‘jackass cave’; inspection established that the alleged painting of a kookaburra bird was in fact, a decaying hand print.
Mutilated Hands or Signal Stencils? A Consideration of Irregular Hand Stencils from Central Queensland
Most of the stencils – which consist of hands as well as some other shapes – are one large panel.
A few individual hand stencils (most in red ochre and two in yellow ochre) and on the wall of the shelter.
Some of the stencils are difficult to discern without image enhancement.
The image pairs below have the unedited photo on the left, and the enhanced image on the right -which often reveal additional red ochre prints.
Unusually, the shelter also has carvings in the sandstone, which are across the wall of the shelter. (The Wullumba rock art site at Chillagoe also has lines carved in the rock, but these are quite different in their shape and distribution.)
A freestanding sandstone boulder within the shelter is covered in carvings, including vertical grooves.
Getting to the Kookaburra Cave
A short, signposted walk from the Mount Moffat Circuit Drive leads to the cave through tall forest.
The trail heads directly towards a tall cliff, which soon comes into view.
The trail curves around the base of the cliffs to a locked gate, before a flight of steps to a platform that protects the rock art.
The return walk to Kookaburra Cave is about 1.5km.
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