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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

 Page 2 of 3. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 57
Area Location Sub Location Crag Links
All NSW (General) (General) (General)  

Author
potential new bouldering area in NW sydney

MonkeyBoy
20-May-2009
11:40:45 AM

>the bannerman rd stencils are on the register thus affording them full
>protection (and the fines are hefty according to one previous successful
>prosecution of an overzealous neighbouring developer).
>

Referring specifically to the section of nmonteith's post above - is there away the register he refers to can become a tool utilised as part of the crag development process. I dont know like having an abridged version online so if you think you have found a good spot you can check the register and make sure it is not a site of significance.

I know its not fool proof but it, like putting up signs, would show a decent step towards self regulation.


nmonteith
20-May-2009
12:16:22 PM
On a crag exploration foray recently on the upper bits of the Hawksbury i stumbled upon a great looking big cave with awesome features - i was all pyched until I spotted a hand stencil - then on closer inspection i started seeing them everywhere! Then i noticed other faded art and also the tell-tale midden shell mounds. What surprised me most was that i had walked past a lot of this without noticing it the first time (too busy looking upwards perhaps!)

contactgav
20-May-2009
11:00:47 PM
to play devils' advocate,
if there is no signage or notification at an area where there is art work etc..
what is to say that the indigenous people know of the areas existence???
would it be so bad to climb, provided you stay clear of the imminent area??
although heuco is regulated, you can still boulder there...

rodw
21-May-2009
7:39:24 AM
I think its a bit of a stretch that every site that has a bit of artwork is culturally significant and especially Middens which are just old scrap piles nothing more..why are they special?

wallwombat
21-May-2009
7:52:19 AM
On 20/05/2009 oldfella wrote:
..
>what is to say that the indigenous people know of the areas existence???

I don't think that matters too much.

It's the cultural heritage geeks and wanna be Indiana Jones's that are more the problem.

nmonteith
21-May-2009
8:08:21 AM
On 21/05/2009 rodw wrote:
>I think its a bit of a stretch that every site that has a bit of artwork
>is culturally significant and especially Middens which are just old scrap
>piles nothing more..why are they special?

It is probably not about the actual physical objects - but more the whole 'place'. It is good to know that they can still visit their ancestors home. Imagine the feeling of going back to your old family house / school / park and all the associated memories it brings back - but multiply it by several thousand times. These few remaining places are significant because they were used for thousands upon thousands of years. Who knows if the bouldering craze will disappear after an insignificant 50 years or so, leaving behind damage to artworks, middens and the caves in general. The other option is to install ugly cages, high fences and big warning signs - which in my opinion ruins the place for both parties.

porkpie
21-May-2009
8:44:23 AM
I agree to being careful not to destroy significant Aborignal areas. The problem is the definition of significant.

An area with lots of etchings and stencils is likely to be an indication of a area used and inhabited extensively, but a small midden or minimal other evidence should not make an area restricted for the future generations. Lets be honest every great bouldering spot in Sydney was likely discovered by the Aboriginals who just didn't have an eye for a good line (then the area would have been rediscovered by 14 year olds with Orcy bottles and a length of garden hose) before climbers finally found the area. I think everyone is willing to be culturaly sensitive but if the authrorities start to draw a longbow and pronounce every lump of sandstone in the Sydney basin as 'significant' people are not going to heed the warnings.

We need to be sure we get the balance right. Climbers (boulderers) need to have the interestes of the indigenous peoples, but lets not let the land managers use the issue to carpet ban climbing/bouldering in and around Sydney.

rodw
21-May-2009
9:09:55 AM
On 21/05/2009 nmonteith wrote:
> It is good to know that they can still visit their ancestors home.
>Imagine the feeling of going back to your old family house / school / park
>and all the associated memories it brings back

Its called progress Neil...and I don't think to many people expect the area to be the same after 100 years let alone thousands. Some places should have heritage listings/status...but not all...as porkie states not everything deserves a blanket protection status....this PC culture we seem to have now is all a bit silly IMHO.

Reminds me of a story a guy told me were he had a family property down on the south coast 20-30 acres which had been in the family for several generations. Anyway a touch feely council gets in and decides to hire some Aboriginal experts to scoure the electorate for culturaly significant sites and they came across a line of stones in one of their paddocks next to some trees. They decided this was an old aborginal site of unknown cultural significance...but significant none the less and it got added to the register, which basically meant it was protected and the value of the property was on the way down.

It turns out one of the uncles remembers in his youth that his dad had cleared the land and placed the rocks their himself and were not aboriginal at all. It took them a while to convince the council who wanted proof? Apparently that wasn't needed to list em in the first place.....just opinion

nmonteith
21-May-2009
9:38:24 AM
Maybe you guys need to re-read Kev's original post...

"the cliff and cave sites at bannerman rd are actually some of the last remaining aboriginal stencil and etched sites left intact and unaltered in the sydney area."

How many aboriginal art sites do people have in their local suburb? What condition are they in? How easy are they wrecked by locals with a can of spray paint, a power drill and a fire? We have almost no areas left in southern australia that could be described as un-touched aboriginal areas. Problem is that westerners built their houses, farms and factorys on the very same waterways that aboriginal people found useful to live beside. We trashed their land, moved them away, rubbed out their language and split up their families. Saying this is all about just being PC is offensive. We are still in a very very early stages of understanding what we destroyed when we moved here. A culture so old and alien to us that we still don't really understand it. How many words of the local aboriginal language for this area to you know? I would guess none - i certainly have no clue and no mainstream awareness of any of the local tribes before Mr Phillip and his charming mates decided to move in. They weren't even considered citizens of this country until a referendum was held in the 1960s. It's sad that all we have left of most of their culture is a few piles of shells and some faded artworks.

rodw
21-May-2009
9:54:32 AM
Is this spray about Bannerman road or just allowing you to sleep better at night becuase you feel guilty about what others have done in the past???? Last time I checked I wasn't born when the provervial "we" did all those things, its certainly not my job to feel gulity about them.

Once you bring emotion into the debate it no longer becomes a debate about what is significant or not but rather idealistic retoric to right some wrongs in the past.

Bannerman might be significant or might not be..I don't know..dont really care TBH..but happy to play by the rules...my point was ...just becuase someone opened a few oyster at some spot dosn't make it significant.



nmonteith
21-May-2009
10:12:12 AM
On 21/05/2009 porkpie wrote:
> I think
>everyone is willing to be culturaly sensitive but if the authrorities start
>to draw a longbow and pronounce every lump of sandstone in the Sydney basin
>as 'significant' people are not going to heed the warnings.

For starters 90% of the sandstone you mention is already part of someones backyard garden feature, or chopped into handy sized squares and formed into buildings. When we look at whats left after that we find we have hundreds of public parks which we have full access to right now. That tiny tiny portion that we don't have access to because of aboriginal sites is a speck on the wall. Surely we can do without another bouldering spot? No one said the government is suddenly going to say "sorry, no more climbing at lindfield, sissy, berowra etc because it's an aboriginal area". I've seen little evidence of massive takeovers of public land by the aboriginal community in the Sydney area. We have been living somewhat of a lie in recent years - with climbing development just being done by however and in whatever style we feel appropriate. It's possibly the end of the so called golden age when we could just do what we wanted.

The area in question is obviously important - Kev mentions fines being handed out in the past. It has to be important for the government to go to the bother of issuing such fines.

nmonteith
21-May-2009
10:19:29 AM
On 21/05/2009 rodw wrote:
>Once you bring emotion into the debate it no longer becomes a debate about
>what is significant or not but rather idealistic retoric to right some
>wrongs in the past.

It's interesting to think a bit about what people think of as significant. If your house was burning down and you could only take a handfull of things with you - what would they be? Chances are they would be family photos or treasured mementos of some sort. Probably things with little value (monetary or not) to other people. Midden shell heaps and rock paintings are the equivalent of the family photos to the aboriginal people. They are records of past events, family gatherings and celebrations. Don't think of them as simple objects - but instead what they represent to the people who once lived there. I'd like to think that there was somewhere for aboriginal kids to go to get in touch with their past history.

porkpie
21-May-2009
10:22:40 AM
All I am saying is we need to be careful not to get carried away with the 'value' of these areas when the cultral heritage is very minor. I heard there was talk about the Frontline crag at the Balkans being an area where the land managers where concerned by the impact of bouldering on the Aboriginal area. I have seen hundreds of climbers enjoy the delights of bouldering at the Balkans but I have never seen a single Aboriginal revelling in the past of ancestors and paying homage to what may or may not have happened there hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Seems to me there is value to the community with bouldering at the Balkans more than there is in preserving the area for any other reason. It will be interesting to see if the authorities agree and what the state of play will be at the Frontline in the future.

nmonteith
21-May-2009
10:31:37 AM
You have to wonder if aboriginal people in the past used to boulder at some of these areas! Imagine sitting in a cave waiting for the rain to stop so you can go hunting. You don't have a TV, book or playstation to pass the time. Surely they would have played around on the rocks just like we do! You don't need fancy shoes or crash mats to go bouldering. There is certainly much evidence of aboriginal climbers getting a fair way up larger cliff lines for various purposes (grave sites in caves is one example). Maybe bouldering is one way we can combine our two cultures?
climberman
21-May-2009
10:39:57 AM
Regardless of the (surprising) view of many on here about the relative values of Aboriginal heritage, such items are protected by law.

Inorder to beef up this law, there is an exposure bill out at present looking to amend the NPW Act to remove the issue of prior knowledge and make it a strict liability offence to damage items of Aboriginal Heritage (ie, the defence of not knowing they were items will be removed). The Act does not discuss degrees of damage, or impact, or even of significance. An Aboriginal object in NSW is:

Aboriginal object means any deposit, object or material evidence (not being a handicraft made for sale) relating to the Aboriginal habitation of the area that comprises New South Wales, being habitation before or concurrent with (or both) the occupation of that area by persons of non-Aboriginal extraction, and includes Aboriginal remains.

if it's of Aboriginal origin, it's protected, significance does not come into it.

monkeyboy - no, the Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System is not available for general perusal. It can be accesssed, for a fee, with a good reason. Undertaking an activity likely to be prohibited in a Reserve is unlikely to be considered a good reason.



rodw
21-May-2009
11:29:18 AM
On 21/05/2009 climberman wrote:
>Aboriginal object means any deposit, object or material evidence (not
>being a handicraft made for sale) relating to the Aboriginal habitation
>of the area that comprises New South Wales, being habitation before or
>concurrent with (or both) the occupation of that area by persons of non-Aboriginal
>extraction, and includes Aboriginal remains.if it's of Aboriginal origin, it's protected, significance does not come
>into it.

and this is a good thing??? so any scrapping, refuse pile, hand spary etc is protected for all time regardless of its significance...no we aint becoming to PC.
climberman
21-May-2009
11:47:49 AM
Yes, protected. Becoming PC ? Well I dunno, the Act is a 1974 Act. I dunno when Part 6 was put in place.

If you felt you had a good reason to destroy one you can go down a legislative and consultation road to get that approval. If you think protection of Aboriginal items is 'too PC' you'd have a right panic at the consultative requirements.

Personally I think the biggest philosophical issue with the current legislative protection of Aboriginal heritage is it's inclusion with the birds and bees and national parks, rather than as part of a dedicated heritage legislative regime (like whitefellas have in the Heritage Act 1977).

rodw
21-May-2009
11:55:33 AM

To PC is meaning in everything is being included...I just reckon significance should play a part like it does in normal law.

>Personally I think the biggest philosophical issue with the current legislative
>protection of Aboriginal heritage is it's inclusion with the birds and
>bees and national parks, rather than as part of a dedicated heritage legislative
>regime (like whitefellas have in the Heritage Act 1977).

If thats your main concern why not put it a provission in the heritage act considering your talking about much the same thing...one law for all.


rocksinmyhead
21-May-2009
12:02:50 PM
hi all, i've got a few questions.

climberman, what is an "exposure bill"? Is it actual law or some kind of draft legeslation? I hate to think that if I went bushbashing and accidently trod on a midden I didn't know was there i could be prosecuted.

I like the idea that I may "discover" cave paintings or middens while sussing out new crags. It's what's exploration is about, and a moment to remember. I'd move on (hopefully to find a better crag!) and after, I'd like to be able report it to the relevant authorities for registration and protection. Afterall, it's irreplaceable and so much has been destroyed already.

However I don't agree with blanket bans on areas. I 'd like to protect what needs protecting, and leave the rest of an area for recreation, but I'd be afraid that if I reported a site, the response could be heavy handed and close down nearby areas. Would anyone be happy if they banned bouldering at the Frontline because they found cave paintings at the Swampland or the Sewer? Has anyone had any experience with this?

Does anyone have any examples of what I should be looking out for? I've found hand stencils before but I am less sure of middens or practically anything else.

Lastly, does anyone know of bouldering crag around Bannerman Rd that does NOT have aboriginal artefacts? I'd just like to go climbing close to home if possible. PM me if you feel necessary

cheers




surfinclimb
21-May-2009
12:04:57 PM
On 21/05/2009 climberman wrote:
>monkeyboy - no, the Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System
>is not available for general perusal. It can be accesssed, for a fee,
>with a good reason. Undertaking an activity likely to be prohibited in
>a Reserve is unlikely to be considered a good reason.

Please correct me if i'm wrong here But if find a "new" bouldering area and disrupt anything then I will get a fine, but if I want to do the right thing first and find out if this site is significant or on the heritage list then I have to pay for this priveledge of doing the right thing? It's not really making sense to me.

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