This is not particularly remarkable as a landscape, but it shows an interesting phenomenon. On the uphill side of the track is open eucalypt forest, and on the downhill side of the track is dense casuarina forest. I associate casuarinas with shallow topsoil. Was the track built along the junction of the two types of terrain, or has the track induced a difference in the forest over time?

Challenger Track in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on Sydney’s northern fringes.

#landscape #KuRingGai

Looking west along the Hawkesbury River from Lamberts Peninsula, in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park. The Hawkesbury marks the northern edge of the Sydney Basin, and the northern edge of the lands of the Eora Nation.

#landscape #LandscapePhotography #KuRingGai #hawkesbury #eora

Aboriginal rock shelter in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park.

It doesn’t look like much shelter these days, but there are ochre hand-prints on the wall, and clear smoke-staining on the roof. Possibly the overhang has eroded over time, or the ground underneath has washed away, leaving the living space less sheltered than it was in centuries past.

#landscape #LandscapePhotography #KuRingGai

Feather on a sandstone rockshelf, Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park.

No idea what species of bird it’s from.

#microlandscape #kuringgai

Sandstone, gum trees… and the rear axle of a car, slowly being absorbed by the earth.

Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park in Sydney’s north. This track would have been closed to vehicles for many decades, so the wreck has been here a long time.

#landscape #LandscapePhotography #kuringgai

Sandstone and eucalypts - Ku Ring Gai Chase Nationa Park, on Sydney’s northern edge.

#landscape #LandscapePhotography #kuringgai

Aboriginal ochre hand-stencil in a sandstone rockshelter on Topham Hill in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park.

You can see on the bottom how the surface of the sandstone is peeling away. In a few years this will be lost forever.

#kuringgai

Moth on a gum leaf in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on Sydney’s northern edge.

#macro #MacroPhotography #insects #kuringgai

A sandstone rockshelf in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on Sydney’s northern fringes. You can just see a hint of the Hawkesbury River, just below the horizon at the far right.

#landscape #kuringgai #hawkesbury #eora

A fragment of sandstone on a sandstone rockshelf in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park. Minor movements in the loose rock from wind and rain have disrupted the weathering of the underlying rockshelf surface.

#microlandscape #landscape #kuringgai

Tesselations in the surface of a sandstone rockshelf in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on the northern edge of Sydney.

#landscape #kuringgai

A battered and rusted old trig station on a peak in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on Sydney’s northern fringes.

#landscape #kuringgai

An Aboriginal rock-carving in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park. Unless this is some sort of Dreamtime spirit, I assume it is a seal.

At a bare minimum it must be centuries old, and it may be thousands of years old.

#kuringgai

A misty Cowan Creek at low tide, shortly after dawn. Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on Sydney’s northern fringes.

#landscape #kuringgai

And this shot shows the wider setting - Smiths Creek to the left, the midden-heap in the right foreground.

#kuringgai

A wider shot, showing the area of the midden in the middle of what is now a mangrove swamp. One more photo to come.

#kuringgai

A close-up of shells in a long-abandoned Aboriginal midden in Smiths Creek swamp in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park.

Families of Aboriginal people would live, hunt or gather in the same places over millennia, discarding shells and bones in midden-heaps that can be metres deep.

I’ll reply to this post with photos of the same site, providing better context.

#kuringgai

Mist on Cowan Creek just after dawn, in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on Sydney’s northern fringes.

#landscape #kuringgai

Cowan Creek in Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park, on Sydney’s northern fringes.

#landscape #kuringgai

Fog on the Hawkesbury River, viewed from Lamberts Peninsula in Ku Ring Gai National Park on Sydney’s northern fringes.

#landscape #kuringgai #hawkesbury