Munurru Aboriginal Rock Art

Two rock clusters beside the track to the Mitchell Plateau contain a wealth of Aboriginal paintings.

This Kimberley Aboriginal rock art is located on the western side of King Edward River, in an area known as Munurru, within Wunambal country. It’s right beside our Munurru camping area.

Paintings in Munurru span thousands of years with depictions of plants from the earliest Archaic period. There are people dressed up for ceremony and depictions of thylacines (Tasmanian Tigers), extinct on the mainland of Australia for 3,000 years. There are also brightly coloured Wandjina, the god like ancestor who bring each wet season’s rains. The Wandjina is the figure with his hands in the air praying for rain.

Two of Jen’s favourites are the Echidna and what looks like two birds (brolgas) facing each other with birds eggs depicted on one of them.

My favourite has to be the alien looking faces that are indeed a good few thousand years old. Maybe the Aboriginals had visitors from space well before we even imagined what an alien could look like and they have depicted them in their stories though rock art.

It’s obvious that this is a sacred and special place with lots of sheltered rocks for dwellings, next to a river source and full of plants and animals.Read more