Milyerra Trail Aboriginal Site (main site)

Right next to the Milyerra Road Fire Trail is a large, tesselated rock platform – originally called Observatory Hill – which contains a number of weathered Aboriginal engravings. Mountain bikes and bulldozer tracks have damaged some of the engravings – and two figures recorded in 1899 have been worn away completely. The site is now better protected by large sandstone blocks.

Many figures are scattered around the site, which was documented by W.D. Campbell and Ian Sim – although Campbell (below, left) recorded less than half of the 44 motifs recorded by Sim in 1969 (below, right).

McCarthy considered this a significant and sacred site, which includes some unusual engravings:

A sacred site with three lines of mundoes with toes, a man and a woman fighting; most of the animals are fish from Brisbane Waters, an emu, goanna and two unusual birds, one of which appears to be a kingfisher with a long beak turned to one side; the man and the woman appear to be fighting or quarrelling, and they are an unique pair; the intagliated oval is of unusual interest because so much work has gone into emphasizing its outline.

Fred McCarthy, Catalogue of Rock Engravings (1983)

At the northern end of the site are the man and woman,”posed upside down to one another.”

The man has “the end of a sword club with a broad blade across his waist and it has a curved line inside its outline” and his “left hand holds a narrow returning boomerang”.

Next to him, a woman with “rounded breasts projecting outwards” is holding a “short and narrow returning boomerang”.

Below the man and woman is an emu: “broad and straight truncated leg, standing with its body parallel with the ground, head and neck forward during feeding”.

Near the emu are two fish, facing in opposite directions.

Below these two fish is another fish and circle.

At the edge of the platform is eith an open oval.

Also at the north-eastern end of the platform (and not included in Sim’s sketch) is a “bird-like figure, broad oval body pointed at one end, pair of short single line legs sloped forward, no eyes”.

Near the middle of the platform is a goanna – and a man who was recorded by Campbell – but not Sim or McCarthy.

There is an eel, two flathead fish and a “slender fish” (below), all fairly weathered.

A few smaller motifs include a hand and a small oval figure.

Near the southern end of the the site are two intersecting lines of mundoes (footprints): one line has larger feet than the other.

The larger mundoes all have clearly defined toes (three, five and six toes).

Between the mundoes is a fish, with “round head, no eyes, slender body, 1 ventral fin, good tail”.

Another line of mundoes is nearby.

A standing bird is described as having a “rounded head, long conical beak, no eyes, head and beak turned to the right, short broad neck, oval body, pair of single line straight legs in line with body”.

One of the unsual engravings at this site is an intagliated oval: “of unusual interest because so much work hag gone into emphasizing its outline”.

Getting to the Milyerra Trail Aboriginal Site

This is the only signposted and easily accessible Aboriginal rock art sites along the Milyerra Trail. The Milyerra Trail Aboriginal Site is reached from the end of Milyerra Road in Kariong (where it meets Brittany Crescent), about 400m along the firetrail. Please don’t be an asshole and ride mountain bikes across the road platform, which have already sustained damage from both bikes and the construction of the firetrail.