The Hound of Gundabooka

(Part 3) Encounters with the Deep Past

Dusty Outback. Big Sky. Red Ochre. Eternal Road...

Cave Art at Gundabooka National Park, New South Wales, Australia, 2023. Photo © Gabriela Gutierrez.

It was still dark when we set off into the Outback. The sleeping town was still and shimmered in its dwellers’ dreaming. We had been on the road for two days, delving deeper and deeper into the hinterland where my ears progressively struggled to understand the thick backcountry cadence that slowed to the very rhythm of the desert.

Soft kangaroo heads surfaced from tall grasses in the fiery flickers of first light. Then emus and wild goats as the sun rose and made the desert blush.

We were on our way to the cave of Gundabooka. A prehistoric site with Aboriginal petroglyphs and deemed sacred to this day.

The sun was high by the time we arrived. And the road ended at the foot of an acacia tree. We parked in its shade and continued by foot.

The red dirt path wove through hardy shrubs, past a shy herd of wild goats, and then up through slippery boulders.

As we followed it up, two wedge-tailed eagles darted out of their tree and spun spirals right above us. Their cries piercing through the veil of silence. Wing span enormous. The creator gods of the Kulin Nation of south-central Victoria, they wove the path to the caves as we neared them.

And then there it was. The wild chapel. Carved into the rock face like en effigy.