A walk today up Stirling Ridge in the Canberra diplomatic suburbia of Yarralumla. I am slowly revisiting sites of documented Indigenous heritage that I know of for a fellow researching the Yuin and Peoples of the surrounding area. These sites are ones that I haven't seen since 2010-12 so any changes in 2018 should be evident.

We met up at the site of the old Westlake Settlement where the early construction of Canberra's workers were housed.. There is new signage since I was last there which I think is appropriate and informative.

As for the scar trees on my short visit I could only relocate one. This doesn't mean the others are gone just that I have a short memory.


Another suburban expedition will be launched on the appropriately weathered day.

A trip this morning to meet up with Vlad who is researching South Coast and Canberra region Indigenous remnant artifacts that luckily remain dotted around the suburban countryside. Today we met up on the banks of Ginninderra Creek in the Canberra suburb of Latham armed with, what turned out to be, a vauge map to the location of 18 documented Indigenous grinding grooves.


The stone is decribed as Volcanic tuff which I am told is very hard which explained why the original survey indicated they were shallow. We managed to locate only two grooves out of the marked eighteen.

It is possible the remaining grooves are overgrown as the creek edge foliage was lush and covering up to the waters edge. The locations indicated several groups of two grooves, two groups of 3 and one group of seven grooves.

I took some video of the two grooves we found..


Some photos..

A visit today to the Symonston Aboriginal Quarry site in Canberra. I haven't been here in 8 years so I was interested in seeing its condition after that time. Apart from a bit of rubbish and a covering of dead pine needles it does not appear to have changed although, from memory, there was more "chert" flakes years ago.

Unless you were specifically researching the site its not a site you would just stumble upon. It is very close to a major industrial/commercial development. I took some video..

I decided to spend my birthday eve at a nearby campground I had overlooked all my life. Just another year until a passing thought reminded me that the next time I need renew my driver's license I will be 60.

I collected the camera this morning as the weather was forecasted for rain. Sitting here writing this I note we have had less than 1 mm of liquid. No sign of a break to the current drought.

The camera was set to take 1 photograph and 30 seconds of video every 10 minutes and I was trying to identify the source of a light I photographed that appeared to be hovering and pulsating above Mount Tennant near Tharwa in the Australian Capital Territory.

I took some video today which is posted below as I recovered the camera. When I got home I again detected a light, which appeared to remain visible for less than an hour, above Mount Tennant. I am sort of confident that the light is too high to be the firetower when I compare daytime still captures with the night.

 I'll leave it up to you..

I visited an Indigenous heritage site today that I have visited every few years by habit. Today the flat beds of stone were prominently exposed with the surrounding  grassland totally eaten down to the ground I suspect by local Grey Kangaroos. Grinding grooves are created in the process of grinding shape and edges to stone implements, crushing ochre and grinding seeds are some of the known uses.

I was disturbed however to see a nearby, un-grooved as far as I remember, rock that had been smashed with a melon sized rock which was located nearby..


The rest appeared as they had last time I visited with a considerable amount of washed in sand grit and leaves in the large bowls..




Located in the Canberra Nature Reserve. Entrance off Christmas Street Theodore, Canberra ACT.