Visit Sydney Australia

Sydney's Aboriginal Heritage

Aboriginal Sites: North Harbour

Beauty Point: A cave on the shores of Beauty Point on Middle Harbour, known as Red Hand Cave, contains a gallery of hand stencils painted with red ochre.

Cammeray: A rock shelter, smoked by thousands of cooking fires, contains the ashes of fires below the surface of the park which was filled in to create the playing fields.

The Esplanade, Balmoral Beach: A rock shelter, which is open to public view, has been preserved at the southern end of The esplanade, Balmoral opposite the swimming pool.

Taylors Bay: Rock carvings of kangaroos are visible on the rock face at the head of the bay. These are rare examples of carvings on a vertical face in the Sydney area.

Obelisk Bay: Rock carvings of fish and hunting implements have been found near the remains of a shell midden.

Dobroyd Head: Axe grinding grooves and rock carvings of footprints, known as mundoes (pronounced mun-doe-eez), have been found on the rocks below Scenic Drive.


Engravings site, Grotto Point, Balgowlah

Washaway Beach, Grotto Point: Engraving site contains numerous illustrations of a small kangaroo, a large kangaroo with tail buried, a large fish, a dolphin and an emu. The engravings are marked by heavy timber guard rails which make them easy to find. The engraving of the large kangaroo with its tail buried is not considered to be a genuine Aboriginal carving.

Reef Beach, Clontarf: Fish and shields have been carved into the tessellated rocks. These carvings are badly weathered and may only be visible only after a storm. A midden stretches the whole length of the beach. Visitors are warned that this is used by locals as a nudist beach.

WARNING: These sites contain irreplaceable examples of the art of the indigenous peoples of the Sydney region. The engraving and rock paintings found at these sites are a reminder of a people who once lived in the Sydney region and as such are valuable part of their history and the history of Sydney that will be lost forever if it not treated with respect. Please do not deface or add to the art, as it is part of our heritage. All such sites protected by law, and to deface, modify or remove them in part or in whole is a criminal offence.

Protecting Aboriginal Art Sites
It is believed that over 6,000 drawings, most of which are carved into sandstone rock faces, once existed throughout what is now the Sydney metropolitan area, but many have been destroyed, bulldozed or blasted out of existence to make way for farms, bridges and later, suburbs. In most cases, those clearing the land or responsible for it did not know about the art's existence, nor did they have any inkling as to its value as either the last remaining evidence of a new vanished culture, its spiritual and religious importance to the survivors of that culture or as a part of Sydney's heritage. As there has been no one to maintain them for over 2 centuries, many of the examples of rock art which have managed to escape the onslaught of the bulldozer and pick axe have suffered the onslaught of wind, sand and sea erosion, being walked on, driven on and vandalised.

To protect what is left, the Government has wisely brought all Aboriginal sites in New South Wales under the protection the National Parks & Wildlife Act 1974. Under the act, it is illegal to disturb, damage, deface or destroy any relic, a relic being defined as any deposit, object or material evidence relating to indigenous & non European habitation of New South Wales (not being handicraft made for sale). By definition, this includes middens, habitation sites, rock carvings, rock paintings, scarred trees, stencils, stone arrangements, stone implements and tools. Though they have been given legislative protection, there is little known about the best way to manage Aboriginal sites. To western eyes, the ideal would be to turn the maintenance of sites over to the Aboriginal people. This sounds good in theory, however, under Aboriginal law, only select people are permitted to maintain the art at these sites. Where those select people cannot be found, or if there are no survivors from a particular tribe, no one can touch the art created by and for that tribe. Even so, the art is considered sacred to the Aborigines, so there is reluctance among the Aboriginal communities to maintain the art if it is to turned into something to make money from by showing it to tourists.

Consequently, the authorities have adopted a policy of keeping the public in the dark about the location of much of Sydney's Aboriginal sites. The thinking behind it seems to be "what the people don't know about the people can't damage". As the damage caused in the past has occurred mainly as a result of ignorance, some would argue that education of the public is a better way to deal with the problem than maintaining their ignorance. When the public do come across it, and can be vandalised, even unintentionally, as it has no relevance, hence no value to them.