Dampier and Murujuga

Dampier is in the Pilbara region of WA a small settlement on the coast with one tourist attraction, a statue of the Red dog made famous in a movie. The color of the town is red as the town is surrounded by red rock. Murujuga National Park, now a world heritage listed site as of a month ago, is home to what is considered the largest and oldest collection of petroglyphs in the world some believed to be some 47,000 years old. There are millions of petroglyphs in the park spread across an extensive area of land. The rock is extremely hard and for images to be carved it was necessary to chisel away the outer layer of the rock to reveal a lighter area below the surface. It is a beautiful tranquil place, the green of the vegetation and trees contrasted against the red of the rocks and the blue of the sky. It made it such a photogenic place.

The national park is owned and managed by the traditional owners who have continually occupied this land for some 50,000 years. The guides on our walk are traditional owners and have extensive knowledge of the area. The petroglyphs depict many different images. They document the animals people saw some we see today, a thylacine which lived in this part of the country at one time as well as animals that existed thousands of years ago. Apart from animals, however, the carvings were an important communication tool providing information to the local people. Such things as areas they could or could not go depending on if they were male or female, young or old, information relating to punishment and even what we might think of as early recipes such as how to cut up a kangaroo. The carvings were also important for communicating stories and song lines and tribal decorations. The morning is pleasantly warm which is a change from the weather we have come through making a walk through the park very pleasant. There are quite extensive walks and we do walk-on further looking for more carvings. They are hard to see and really the only way you can spot them is if you look very carefully at individual rocks. We see many more. I regret not having brought the binoculars.

Apart from what looks like a very rugged landscape, there are also reasonably sized trees and very grassy areas with small shrubs as well as wallabies. During our presentation while looking at the rock art, two rock wallabies charge across the face of the rocks darting in and out, turning with agility on the rocks, not possible to photograph. One of the plants we are shown is a bush tomato. It's a relatively low growing plant with a very large green fruit, I can see the similarity with a tomato. . It is cooked and eaten but minus the seeds which apparently can upset your stomach.

We go back to the ship for lunch and we have the option of going back into Dampier but decide that there isn't enough there of interest to warrant going into town. Tonight is the final dinner, again, a magnificent feast including eye fillet served with lobster tail. Disappointingly the wine is just the normal relatively low quality French wine they serve at every meal.Lue lisää