Punda petroglyphs

Here are some more images from the Punda rock art site. As the crow flies it is not a long distance from the Wanna Munna site, but by car the route is very circuitous. I have adjusted the images into monochrome to increase the visibility of the petroglyphs.

It is a site that is fantastically rich in imagery and I am so glad we were able to revisit there. 

There were plenty of birds there too making the most of the spring water at the base of the rocky hillside. Here is a fraction of a flock of budgies wheeling in the sky.

Behind the hill, growing beside the water were some tall creamy trunked trees that I couldn't ignore. 

Wanna Munna

On the subject of artworks, here is a slip back to our time in the Pilbara. We called in to Wanna Munna which is about 75km out of Newman and relatively close to the main road. It is an Aboriginal rock art site straddling a water hole. Unfortunately there is a bit of graffiti at this site, probably because it is so close to the main road to Port Hedland. However I won't give electronic space to the graffitist efforts.

Wanna Munna boomerangs

Just to put the site in context here are two images looking upstream, where the majority of work is to be seen, and downstream where there is a beautiful jumble of rocks in the river bed.

Wanna Munna main pool upstream

Wanna Munna looking down stream

Some of the images picked on the rocks were very faint, and in places layered one on another. Presumably some of them are very ancient but again I can find little information about them. There were images of emus, kangaroos, spotted cats, figures - people?and boomerangs. It requires a high degree of skill to chip out such simple, elegant and true likenesses from hard and unforgiving granite boulders.

Wanna Munna rock art

Wanna Munna rock art emu and kangaroo

There were many birds here too - zebra finches, budgies, white naped honey eaters, mudlarks, corellas, willy wagtail amongst others. A large bird of prey flew in, a whistling kite, and off went all the other little birds.

Wanna Munna rock art figure

To finish here is an image of a tree that has defied the odds growing in a rocky crevice. They amaze me how they manage to do it.

Punda art

Since leaving Newman one special place we visited was Punda Aboriginal rock art site near the Coondiner River. I was blown away by the beauty of the site and of the art itself. The art is found on large rocks on a hillside beside a small spring and overlooks a gap in the surrounding hills down to the plains beyond. The hill itself has a marvellous conical peak, the perfect marker for a special site.

We had to get a permit to use a section of the BHP rail road to get there but no permit to visit the site itself. As it is open to the public I am working under the assumption it is ok to publish photos of the site and the art itself. The track in is typical 4wd although rocky with dips and hollows towards the end. Here is just a taste of the drawings chipped into the rockfaces.