Tag Archives: Aboriginals

Ku-ring-gai Chase

Third Saturday… a colleague and her husband took me to one of the national parks around Sydney: Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.

We had a great day: lots of different wildflowers, great vistas, and last but not least, some examples of ancient rock engravings by the Guringai people.

Illawong Point

Our first stop was at Illawong Point where we had a spectacular view over the Coal and Candle Creek. This creek is a branch of the Cowan Creek, which again is a branch of the Hawkesbury River, which starts at Broken Bay, which we will see at our next stop.

Coal and Candle Creek at Illawong Point
  

As an aside: the word “creek” reminds me of the Dutch word “kreek”… used for streams that are a LOT smaller than the rather impressive waterway in the photo above.

Some Australian birds – not specific for the national park: I’ve seen them elsewhere in Sydney, but I just managed to take a picture of them here:

  • Australian Magpie
  • Australian Brush-Turkey

And true to Australian form – a magpie is lovingly called “maggie”…

West Head Lookout

Next stop: West Head Lookout. Great vistas of Broken Bay, which basically is the estuary of the Hawkesbury River. Supposedly the bay got its name from Captain Cook, who recorded “broken land” north of what is now Sydney Harbour. There is some controversy about where exactly he saw this land, but it could well be at what is now called Broken Bay. The island in the middle of the bay is named Lion Island since its form looks somewhat like a sphinx, or a lying lion – head on the right, tail on the left:

Lion Island, in the middle of the estuary of the Hawksbury River
  

Looking out towards the ocean provides a view of Barrenjoey Head with its lighthouse. This is Sydney’s northernmost point. On the right hand site of the photo a little bit of beach is just visible: Palm Beach.

Barrenjoey Head, with South Pacific Ocean in the background
  

And again – some wildlife. This time two (very different) plants:

  • Flower spikes of grass trees
  • Paper bark

These particular examples of the grass tree are only very small (in a later post I’ll show taller specimens), but the flower spikes are rather impressive nonetheless. The paper bark tree, or melaleuca quinquenervia to give it its formal name, is of the myrtle family. Its bark was used by the Aboriginals for all sorts of things, from wrapping food to providing shelter.

A walk through the bush

On a little walk through the national park we came across many great plants native to Australia. On first sight the bush seems rather brown, and not very interesting. But when taking a proper look there is a lot to discover. The following is only a selection of many photos that I took, but hopefully it gives an impression of the rich flora of the bush around Sydney…

  • Grey spider flower
  • Tea tree
  • Seemingly growing out of just sand…
  • “Scribbles” on eucalypt tree
  • Banksia flower
  • Grevillea speciosa (?)

Doesn’t it look as if the plants just grow out of sand…? And these scribbles on the tree: apparently these are used in certain children’s books as “secret messages”. It is only relatively recently (mid-30s of the last century) that it was found that the larvae of a very small moth created the scribbles.

And then this:

Footprint of a kangaroo
  

Indeed – a footprint of a kangaroo…☺ My closest encounter with this Australian native so far!

Ancient rock engravings

Ku-ring-gai Chase national park has some great examples of ancient rock engravings by the Aboriginal people that used to live around Sydney:

Entrance to the part of the park with rock engravings

The engravings are much larger than I somehow had expected… the photos below show only a part of them:

Not very much is known about the engravings. They are found at many places around Sydney, from the ocean to the Blue Mountains. As the English who arrived in Australia in the 18th century weren’t exactly interested in understanding the culture of the people who lived in the country already, and as many of the Aboriginal people died, not in the least from diseases that were almost certainly brought to them by the new settlers, the meaning of these engravings is not known. The engravings often show fish, humans (top figure), animals (bottom figure shows hopping wallabies), or mythical figures. Based on similar findings from other indigenous groups, it is thought that these sites were important for all sorts of ceremonies, such as to increase a food source, hence the depiction of animals.

What seems better known, is the way the engravings were made. Presumably an outline was made first, and then a series of holes were made along this outline with a pointy material, probably stone. This would be possible, as the rock around Sydney consists of a relatively soft sandstone. As a last step, the holes would be connected by groves resulting in the engravings still seen today. It is thought that the Aboriginal people would probably have retraced the engravings every so often to keep it visible. This practice is certainly done now by the National Park and local Aboriginal communities.

Waratah

On our way to lunch, we had an excited cry from the back seat to stop the car, as waratahs were sighted…

Waratah in the bush
  

The waratah is the floral emblem of New South Wales, the state of which Sydney is the capital. And a nice flower it is:

Waratah
  

Beaches

Finally – on our way back home, they took me past some of the northern beaches. Where we saw firstly a few more beautiful birds:

  • Wattlebird
  • Galahs

And then – beaches:

Long Reef beach (? I think…?)

Note in the photo above how there is also water “behind” the beach: this is a so-called “lagoon”. These lagoons near the coast are not very deep, have salt water and are often separated by a shallow bank of sand or something like that. This barrier can be easily broken, and a lagoon therefore can empty into the ocean and be re-filled at high tide.

Freshwater Beach
  

Just about visible in the photo above, is the rock pool at Freshwater Beach: at the top-middle of the photo. There are many rock pools in Sydney, offering swimming in ocean water without the risk on being taken away into the ocean by currents… or sharks…

And that was the end of a very interesting day!

University of Sydney

On Friday in my third week a colleague and I went to a talk at the University of Sydney. This was where I had my first experience of anything to do with the original inhabitants of Australia – Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders. On the way back, my colleague drove me to a few nice spots in Sydney with views of… uhm… well, let’s say: Sydney…

University of Sydney

A talk, related to work, brought me to the University of Sydney:

Coat of arms of University of Sydney
  

Founded in 1850, it is the first university of Australia. One of the people who were material to its foundation – William Wentworth – studied at Cambridge University… is that where the idea for the buildings came from? The sandstone buildings look very familiar to me:

Main Quadrangle of University of Sydney
  

And indeed – it is also known as “Oxbridge”… ☺

Sadly, the jacaranda tree that used to be in the Main Quadrangle has died. But full in bloom were the azaleas and clivias, no, not in Mum’s “vensterbank”, but in the borders, outside:

Lovely display of azaleas and clivias at the University of Sydney
  

Then it was time to go in for the talk. I won’t bore you with the contents of the talk (which I enjoyed very much, don’t get me wrong), but there was something that caught my attention.

Acknowledgement of Country

Before the invited professor began his presentation, he was introduced and welcomed. Nothing new here – I had witnessed that many a time. But part of the general welcome was along the following lines:

Before we begin the proceedings, I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of the land on which we meet; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that the University of Sydney is built.

As we share our own knowledge, teaching, learning and research practices within this university may we also pay respect to the knowledge embedded forever within the Aboriginal Custodianship of Country.

Acknowledgement of Country by University of Sydney

Perhaps naive of me, but I had never heard of such a thing before… This was nothing to do with the invited professor – he was from a different country altogether. Initially I thought that a group of “Gadigal people of the Eora Nation” had been invited as well, or something like that. But a bit of googling told me that this is “an opportunity to acknowledge, and pay respect, to the Traditional Owners and ongoing custodians of the land – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people“.

Before the Europeans arrived in Australia to settle there, it was inhabited by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They were organised in many different tribes, or clans, each living in a particular area. Whilst the boundaries were not officially set, visitors from other tribes had to ask permission and needed to be “welcomed to the land” by the tribe living in the “country” he/she visited. This ceremony included an elder of the visited tribe asking the spirits of their ancestors and spirits of the land to watch over them and keep the visitors safe… An example is on the Wikipedia page about “Welcome to Country”.

Relatively recently this custom has been widely taken over in Australia, mainly in an attempt to improve relationships between the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders on the one hand, and the “new” Australians on the other. This has resulted in many formal events – including the ceremonial opening of the parliament of Australia – beginning with a “welcome to the country” by an elder of the local tribe that used to live at the place the meeting is held. If no local “elder” is available, as was the case at the meeting that I attended, an “acknowledgement of country” is done. There are different views of this now country wide performed custom – as an outsider to Australia I don’t feel equipped to discuss this matter properly, so take a look for yourself: there is a lot of information on the internet. The only thing I will add as a Christian, is that I’m sad to see that what is / used to be part of a Christian nation has no issues with “asking the spirits of ancestors and of the land to keep people safe”…

Viewing Sydney From The North Shore

After the talk, my colleague drove me to a couple of places on the north shore in Sydney. To begin with, Milsons Point, which gave a great view on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House (warning: there are many more photos to follow of both landmarks in further posts to come…).

View on Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House from Milsons Point
  

We then drove a little further along the north shore towards the west, where we had another great viewpoint of Sydney, yes, again the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, as well as central Sydney on the right hand site of the photo.

View on Sydney from north shore
  

So far Friday. I have been considering if I would add Saturday to this post as well, as I went out with the same colleague and her husband. However, it is probably better to keep it to “a day at a time” – otherwise the posts may become rather long.