Rock art sites in kakadu?
nihilobstat
Ubirr and Nourlangie, I mean sites off the beaten track, places you
can only get to on a multi-day walk.
Seems like there is some controversy about citing these locations,
because of the risk of offending Aboriginal sensibilities. But there
must be precious few people who actually get off the beaten track in
Kakadu. Between the need for permits and the lack of tracks, you need
to be pretty organised and committed to get there, and the only people
who are going to do that are not going to vandalise anything.
I've heard rumours of lists of waypoints for art sites but I haven't
been able to find anything on a solid Saturday afternoon of searching.
If anyone has any clues, please post here.
Thx, Peter
nihilobstat
I have a digital map, made from professionally made scans of six 50
thou sheets of South Kakadu (sickness country). The map covers from
13°S 132°15'E to 13°30'S 133°E, and includes Jim Jim Falls, Twin
Falls, Koolpin Gorge, Graveside Gorge, Maguk, Gunlom and lots lots
more. I also have waypoints for treks around all of the above. From my
own use on the ground, the points are quite accurate, but of course
all care has been taken and no responsibility will be taken for any
misadventure caused by their use.
I also have a map of the Tabletop trek in Litchfield NP, with
waypoints. Haven't walked this one yet, so can't vouch for their
accuracy. I also have .map files to use the maps in Oziexplorer.
I can put the files up on a friends webpage, but I don't want to
generate too much traffic there (the South Kakadu map is a 132MB TIFF
file). So if anyone out there has waypoints for art sites in Kakadu
(or Litchfield) and you want any of these files, PM me and we can work
something out.
thx, Peter
nwilk...@gmail.com
David Morrison
There are nut cases who will go to extreme lengths to "get back at" the
Aborigines. God knows what they have against the aborigines. After all
we gave them all the deserts and unfriendly places to live, and seem
intent on killing them all off. (For the sarcasm-challenged, this is an
example of sarcasm!) I have seen myself the damage done by well-meaning
but unknowing people to aboriginal sites.
Secondly, while the aborigines are concerned about damage, they are more
concerned about sacrilege. Many of the sites have religious
significance, and should not be visited by unqualified people. Just
think about a bunch of foreigners wanting to wander around some
important Christian monasteries and churches with no supervision
whenever they wanted to.
Lots of people would no doubt say that looking at them does no harm. But
the fact that the knowledge gets out there means they are at risk from
less scrupulous people.