Today, I went to visit an Aboriginal site known as the Tingha Stonewoman.  Basically, it’s an unusual rock formation in a creek that looks like a woman lying face-down with her head in the water.

For a bit of background info, I’ll give you guys a quote about the legend of the Stonewoman:

“There was once a young girl who decided to choose her own husband, and not let the older people choose one for her, as was the custom of those days. She married a person who was not of her right group and did not belong to her people. The young girl ran away with her husband, but the girl stopped to have a drink of water. The Elders had sent people after her to kill her, because she had broken the law and when they found her bending over drinking the water, they hit her on the back of the head with a nulla nulla, causing her neck to break. She is still there today with her head in the water, and she is a warning to all young girls not to break the laws of marriage.”

Basically ‘marry who we want you to marry or you’ll be murdered and cursed’.  Which, to give them credit, is a much more direct and immediate threat than most other cautionary tales go for.  There’s also a poem written about it:

Yes, I took a picture of a pamphlet purely so I wouldn’t have to type out that poem.  Deal with it.

On the way, I again encountered a cattle grid in the middle of a busy road, because it seems that the road into Tingha goes through someone’s paddock.  I kid you not – as you’re going over the hill, seeing the outlying houses, there are cows wandering over the road.  At least they have a sign up warning you to look out for them.

Tingha also has some interesting street names.  I went past Museum Street and Swimming Pool Road to get onto the track out to the Stonewoman.  Gems seem to feature as well – in my short detour through the town, I went down both a Ruby Street and an Opal Street.  I think my favourite is Swimming Pool Road, though – I think we can all guess what can be found on that street!

I drove along a dirt road to get to the parking area.  There’s been a bit of rain lately, so a creek was actually flowing over the road at one point, and I switched to 4WD for that.  Don’t anybody worry, though – I could still see the road under the water, so I probably would have been fine with two wheels, but I switched to four in case the dirt road had gotten boggy.

I parked the car and had to open a gate to get onto the walking track – the Stonewoman is on private property, and you have to get permission to see it.

This was the kind of landscape I was walking through:

There were some nice flowers around, too.  Not big carpets of colour or anything, just little dots and splashes here and there:

There was some nice birdsong as well, particularly around the creek:

 

Also around the creek, I spotted a few birds darting around the trees.  I managed to get a photo of one of them – this is a Brown Treecreeper:

 

Away from the water, I mostly heard insects:

 

I did manage to get a picture of what was making that sound – it was some kind of grasshopper or cricket.  Can you spot it in the photo?

It’s hard, mainly because it’s the same green as the surrounding vegetation and there’s a bit of grass blocking its face.

Give up?  Here it is:

Well camouflaged, huh?

I also managed to spot what I thought was a yellow robin, but is actually a White-throated Gerygone:

 

Eventually, I was walking beside a dried-up watercourse.

At least, I’m assuming it was a watercourse.  I’m not sure what else could have given that little gully those steep sides.

I found this tree in the middle of the path:

I’m not sure what happened to it, or if the fire scarring across the trunk had something to do with the way it died, but I ducked under it and continued on my way.

I found a bunch of butterflies along the path as well.  This is a picture of one of them:

Eventually, I reached the Stonewoman.  But there was so much water flowing that I couldn’t get a good look at her.  This is what it looks like usually:

You can see how that could be a woman, lying face-down with her head in the water.  This is what I saw:

You can just see what’s meant to be her legs, and nothing else.  I took a video of the rushing water:

 

Then I turned around and went back the way I came.  I spotted some more birds in the trees on the way back.

A Grey Shrike-thrush:

 

A Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike:

 

And a willie wagtail:

 

These little guys were everywhere.  This was just the one I managed to film.

I also spotted a crimson rosella:

And just before I opened the gate to the car park, these very startled sheep:

Then it was back through the causeway and off to Turtle Shell!