Summary: Above the Gosford Railway Dams in Narara is a long wave-like shelter with a significant amount of Aboriginal art, in white and red ochre, and charcoal.

Near the Narara Railway Dam Aboriginal engraving site is a long, north-facing cave, which contains a large number of Aboriginal paintings and hand stencils (and some more modern graffiti). It was documented by Warren Bluff who noted that the site was archaeologically very significant.

The most obvious art is a number of white hand stencils and red ochre figures across the back wall of the shelter.

This includes six “tally marks” in red ochre: “The reason for these ‘tally’ marks as they have been described by other archeologists and anthropologists is not clear as they occur throughout the region in many rock shelters mostly done with black charcoal but sometimes in white or red ochre” (Bob Pankhurst).

The charcoal and red ochre figures include over ten humans (2 in red ochre and the rest in charcoal), three kangaroos and at least one snake.

These charcoal figures (superimposed on a number of hand stencils) below show a human figure on top of a wallaby or kangaroo: Bob Pankhurst described this as a “warrior and a large wallaby”.

Next to the man and kangaroo and a number of charcoal motifs, which include an emu or bird.

Below is a kangaroo in charcoal, superimposed on two human figures in red ochre.

This panel has what may be a more abstract human figure in red ochre, and another kangaroo in charcoal.

A small alcove has another small human figure in charcoal.

There are over 30 hand stencils in both white and red ochre, in two prominent clusters as well as distributed across the back wall of the shelter.

Some of the graffiti – such as a set of initials and the date 20/10/10 – dates back to 1910.

At the western end of the cave under the dripline are what appear to be several grinding grooves.

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Aboriginal Sites by National Park

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.
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.
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.