Featuring Baiame Cave, Bulga, and the Finchley Aboriginal Cultural Walk, Yengo National Park

For indigenous culture, local history, artists and photographers

Your visit is free – no charges apply to either site

  1. Baiame Cave Painting Bulga

No facilities are provided for visitors

To get there: Take Welshs Road off Old Bulga Road Milbrodale near Bulga. Look for the ‘Truckies Monument’. The cave is situated on private land, on a short unsealed section of road.

Baiame Cave is of state significance featuring a painted figure in the open cave, believed to be Baiame, who is understood by some Aboriginal people across NSW to be the creator, the ‘Father of All’, the most important ancestor and law-maker. The male figure overlooks the valley, with wide arms outstretched and large white eyes. It now faces open farming land but is an impressive sight.

The Aboriginal people of Wonnarua are understood to be the traditional custodians of the artwork prior to and post colonisation.

In the c1990s National Parks & Wildlife Service constructed a wooden stairway to the cave plus a steel viewing platform, bench seating, as well as interpretive signage.

Baiame Cave’s is now listed on the State’s Heritage Register.

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5061940

  1. The Finchley cultural walk – rock engravings

To get there: Take the Yango Creek Road from Wollombi or Laguna,  Upper Yango Creek Road onto the Finchley track, 14ks or so within the National Park border.

Some visitor facilities are provided in the near-by camping ground, parking area.

These rock engravings sit on a wide open rock platform along a short walking track making up the Finchley cultural walk in Yengo National Park. The walk is a few kilometres from the Finchley Trigg, also a ‘must-see’ with spectacular views from a wooden viewing platform.

While it has unsealed but maintained roads for most of the trip from Wollombi, the bush is truly magnificent. Yengo National Park forms part of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, dedicated for its rich Eucalypt diversity. It’s a short walk with informative signs along the way giving insight into the Aboriginal culture of the area.

Yengo National Park is one of the eight conservation areas that make up the massive Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Covering one million hectares, it was included in the World Heritage list in December 2000 for its remarkable geographic, botanic and cultural values. There are more than 90 different eucalypt species found here – some 13 per cent of all eucalypt species in the world.

https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/lookouts/finchley-lookout

https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/walking-tracks/finchley-cultural-walk

 

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Author: Robyn and Alan Woolley, Valley View Cottage
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