So we're up in the in the far northwest pocket of my
traditional lands.
We call it Sandstone Caves.
It's a meeting place and occupation site for lots of
clans.
We're on the north eastern side of the site and away from the
main occupation or cape area.
It's caged here to protect the growing grooves and some of the
markings inside.
We've had incidences in the past when this was an open site back
in the 80s where we had a lot of desecration and damage being
occurred here.
This site here has a bit of artwork engraved on the rocks.
Our art sites are all engravings and carvings into sandstone.
So you'll see a few tracks and things and markings and that up
here and you also see some some broader grinding grooves as
well.
Sometimes I'll go into the cave.
If I'm here by myself, I'll go in, I'll just grab some pine
needles of the black and white cypress, which is our health
plant.
And I'll just dust down the grooves and whatnot but I'll
also dust the floor so there's no footprints and that showing
in the cave and keep it as natural as possible in respect
to its purpose, you know?
This is one of two holding wells that were traditionally
fashioned out of the sandstone by my ancestors.
Traditionally we manipulate the environment to suit our needs.
So all the water that was bought up here was held in this larger
one and a smaller one a little bit further in the caves.
But you can actually see now, some of the damage that was that
was done, quite extensive damage here you can see.
The actual floor of that well, the whole thing has been smashed
out quite a few decades ago.
And that was primarily due to opening this site, getting those
people in that are not here to appreciate the site.
We had a lot of desecration here.
Thousands of people would carve their names in these walls, but
you can see from here you can't repair that.
That's something that was utilized for, you know, tens of
thousands of years and now it's gone.
It's lost. We can't fix that. So just wanted to bring that to
On these areas here and those sensitivities, they're the
light.
things that can really impact our community.
I'd love to get more of the younger kids and community
involved in the delivery of the message.
You know, I think the way the world is and the way things for
Aboriginal people and communities are, we have to
really look at social enterprise and getting things created at
the local level.
Because the opportunities are just not there and they're
diminishing more and more.
In this country, this country is me. Does that makes sense?
I belong to it. Same way it belongs to me.
You need a week out here to to really appreciate the country
and some of the places that you'll get to visit and explore
such as this will really open your eyes.
And no, you don't have to travel thousands of kilometers or
overseas to get that experience.