Friday, December 28, 2018

Devil's Gap


Some years ago I had placed an audio recorder out at a place called Devil's Gap which is located in between Gibraltar Creek and Tidbinbilla and accessible by foot from the Tidbinbilla Ring Road or via the fire trail which starts just up from the woods reserve campground located on Corin Road.
It was mid winter at the time and I was attempting to record the sound of a lyrebird display. It is my habit to put out a sony voice recorder which will run for 4 days with high powered lithium batteries on super high quality. The 8gb memory card holds 16 x 8 hour files which matches the battery life.

I did manage to capture a lovely recording which had the claim to fame of being played on ABC Radio Canberra. I also captured some unidentified noises which had left me wondering for a long time as to what had made the noises.

I would describe the sounds captured as being like a very heavy man running past the recorder several times and at times striking the recorder. This was accompanied by the sound of tree branches/bushes being snapped in what sounded like an aggressive action and a separate approach by a set of walking sounds, stopping to rummage the granite rock that was placed on the plastic weather sheild that protected the recorder.

All this happened in the small hours of the morning in fairly dense scrub at an hour that I wouldn't expect bushwalkers let alone cross country runners.. I returned there 6 days ago and again set a recorder.. I picked it up today. Here is a short video of the set up..

   

 And another of my trip to collect today..

   

 If there is anything to report I'll post again.

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Gibraltar Creek Aboriginal Grinding Grooves


A trip today with Vlad to Gibraltar Falls on Corin Dam Road to see some documented Indigenous grinding grooves. There are several grooves located within a few square metres along the edge of the creek above the falls.

Vlad tells me there are more undocumented grooves below the falls which can be approached via the Gibraltar Creek walking track which begins at Woods Reserve.

My first impression of the location was the impressive views that would have been on display as the person grinding worked. I took some video..


Saturday, December 8, 2018

Sainsbury Park Aboriginal Scarred Tree - Wanniassa


A trip today with Vlad to inspect the known Aboriginal Scar Trees in Wanniassa. Of particular interest to me was an old tree with a double scar near a small children's play area in Sainsbury Street opposite Spensley Place. The tree has two scars indicating two utensils were made. One, to me, appears to be the size of a large shield and the other a smaller coolomon.

The larger scar is impressive. In my opinion it is the most destinct scar I have seen in the Canberra region because of the way the bark regrowth on the scar's edge has grown symmetrically giving a good impression of the original size of the scar.

I took a few photographs..








History lost through lack of funding

  The following ABC article laments the possible loss of many historical audio visual records that are waiting for digitising into modern fo...