Shorter article Rock Carvings

Bruce Elder finds a wealth of ancient Aboriginal art around the NSW capital.
If you have a sense of history and you stand on any one of the hundreds of vantage points overlooking the harbour, it is hard not to wonder about the life of Sydney's Aborigines before 1788. How idyllic must it have been to have lived on Cremorne Point or North Head, never worrying about the mortgage or the huge new extensions being added by the neighbours?
Imagine wandering down to the shoreline, levering a few oysters off the rocks, catching a Balmain bug or two, perhaps doing some fishing and then returning to gaze across the harbour at the eucalypts and sandstone on the opposite shore.
Eighteen years earlier, on April 29, 1770, Captain Cook appeared to be trying to understand the locals when he recorded in his journal: "All they seem'd to want was for us to be gone." Of course they did. No one wants paradise ruined. Never has "there goes the neighbourhood" seemed so apposite as when the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour.
Today, modern Sydney has obliterated most evidence of the estimated 4000-8000 Daruk, Dharawal, Garigal and Guringai speakers who lived in the Sydney basin before 1788. There are few remaining shell middens. There are no remnants of settlement and little evidence of camp fires. But this does not mean pre-European Sydney has disappeared.
The nature of the city's predominant rock - Hawkesbury sandstone - and its flatness and softness has meant rock carvings abound. You can spend a day - or two - rediscovering Aboriginal Sydney and vicariously rubbing shoulders with the people who enjoyed life at its best in the Sydney basin long before the descendants of Europeans decided views that were once free were now worth $20 million. With few exceptions, the rock carvings are on rock ledges that have superb views of the harbour and the Tasman Sea.
Jibbon Head, Bundeena
A day at Bundeena is worthwhile even without the added attraction of some of Sydney's finest rock carvings. Take the ferry from Cronulla or drive through the Royal National Park to this charming outpost. Before Europeans the original inhabitants were the Dharawal, whose land stretched from Botany Bay to Jervis Bay. For tens of thousands of years the locals swam, fished, made canoes from bark, carved, holidayed and camped on the pristine shores of Port Hacking. Jibbon's great secret is that Jibbon Headland has one of the finest collections of Aboriginal carvings in the Sydney basin. Walk the length of Jibbon Beach, find the track at its eastern end, walk through the unspoilt bushland for about 400 metres and, almost hidden from view (it is located to the left at the top of a short set of stairs), there's a large sandstone outcrop with carvings that include a local mummaga (law giver), a stingray, a killer whale more than 11 metres long, a turtle, a kangaroo and a murrera (an initiated leader).
Bulgandry engravings, near Gosford
Turn off the Pacific Highway to Gosford south into Woy Woy Road; 2.7 kilometres along is a poorly signposted turn-off to the car park for the Bulgandry Aboriginal engravings site. It is a short walk along a path to a large, flat rock outcrop. A pathway has been built around the circumference of the site.
There are good information boards nearby that explain what is known of the Guringai and the etchings. The figures are of men, women, marine life, kangaroos and canoes. It is not known to what extent they form a narrative. They probably started as a charcoal or scratched outline that was then made permanent by "pecking" holes along the outline with a pointed stone, with the area between the holes later rubbed away.
Red Hands Cave, Blue Mountains National Park, Glenbrook
Drive to Glenbrook, 64km from Sydney, stop at the Blue Mountains Tourist Information Centre (on the Great Western Highway) to get directions and then head south off the highway, past the railway station, down Glenbrook's main street and into the national park. A day pass costs $7. Follow the signs to Red Hands Cave, which is a 14km drive from the main gate (10km on dirt road), to see some well-protected and well-preserved red handprints and stencils.
The walk from the car park to the cave is a reminder of how peaceful and silent the Australian bush can be.
The handprints and stencils are artworks from the Daruk people, who lived in the area for more than 14,000 years.