STRICKLAND STATE FOREST – 4th June 2026
Well, not quite my back yard, but close enough. A day out in a State Forest close to home looking for Aboriginal art, sounded perfect for a “fitness walk”. Jeff B and Alan C joined us, having a group of only four was just right for “stopping and starting”, thanks John for putting this walk on the MSS calendar. And, surprisingly, not too many leeches.
John has spent much of the last couple of years searching for Aboriginal art. He uses the Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System (AHIMS) where you can look at a small (very small) part of an area and see where art has been identified. Often the site on the map is way off and in that case it involves a lot of walking around and trying to see where “someone” has identified a site. Often it cannot be found, but when it is, John photographs the art and checks the GPS location, often the location is “off” or sometimes he finds something “new”, and then he sends the site to the AHIMS site.
The start of the walk, a little bit of “up hill” to an area that I’ve often visited (and not seen any art). In this case we found 2 “sites” but found nothing.
Nice honeycombing in a cave though.
And a beautiful Angophora (tree), nice to look “up” sometimes.
Some axe grinding (sharpening) groves.
After a lot of wandering around (we’d been at it for about 2 hours now), we came across this engraving of a man (obviously).
A few hand stencils in a small cave.
John documenting something in a small overhang which you would have walked right past, the stencil in the cave was difficult to see (image above).
By now we’re at the last location identified in this part of the Forest, John rigged a handline to get down to the bottom of the cliff, Jeff and I decided that it was too slippery with all the leaf litter, so we headed back to the car and left Alan and John to explore. Apparently they found something really good LOL.
About 6 years ago, one of my bushwalking friends took me to a dam in this area of the State Forest, and that was on our list to “see”. We walked to the location where I’d descended into the valley but found that there was now a house that had been built where we descended. This was pain, so we decided that we’d go back to the car, and drive (quite a way) around to where we might be able to get in and headed off. Once we got there, we took a detour and headed for another couple of “sites”.
Walking down the fire trail (also in the State Forrest) we came across this scar on a tree. Scars are made with Aboriginals carve some bark off a tree to make a utensil (like a “plate” or a “shield”, or sometimes if it’s a really big one a canoe. The jury was out with this one, it could have been a scar caused by a grader truck when making the road.
We soon found this cave which had quite a few stencils and charcoal drawings in it.
The stencils are quite faint.
John (and I) use an App called RockArtEnhancer and this is what the stencils above look like after using the App.
A possible charcoal drawing, can’t tell what it is though, even when enhanced.
Red Ochre “tokens”, we’re not sure what they mean.
Possibly some more charcoal drawings, iffy though.
At the next site, John has found an engraving, putting some water on it to make it more visible.
And here was what was revealed.
Also a (big) fish.
Highlighting the engraving with water.
A beautiful Angophora.
We started at 9am and finished around 4pm, so it was a good day out and about 5k of walking (there was a lot of stopping and starting). We found enough art to satisfy ourselves and I think John will go back to some of them after the sun goes down as sometimes you find other engravings once it’s dark and you shine a light across the rock.
Thanks John for putting the walk on, am keen for the next one to go on my calendar!
Thumbnail image: a really unusually coloured Banksia flower.