Interpreting the world around us, or understanding a world that is as spiritual as it is physical is one of the most delightful challenges I have experienced in discovering the ancient Lore of Tribal Australia. As I child I wandered the Aussie bush with an often wary childish delight. There you can feel the presence of many worlds, the touch of ancient spirits and come to understand more deeply the legends of Aus’.
For over 300 million years they have stood sentinel, a time span in which man barely figures. Once they rivalled the Himalayan mountains, in an eon before the Himalayan mountains were even conceived, but now they are worn down to the earth. They are one of the greatest and oldest mountain ranges on the planet. Continue reading
In this article I am going to ask that you come on a journey with me, one back in time and beyond our own culture, the culture you are most familiar with. I am going to ask that you leave this behind for a moment and come travel back beyond the time of Australia’s written record, back into pre-history.
We are going to go beyond the dogma of an English colony, that of a penal settlement in Sydney Cove 1788 which was a colony of men and women enslaved by a military and social ‘upper’ class who commonly saw themselves beyond the law. I want you to step with me into a strange new world. It is not Terra Nullius as the English insisted, it is a healthy and thriving culture that had travelled a vast landscape for tens of thousands of years. This is a time before the English arrived.
Available for only a few days is a promotional download of the e-book Nulla Nulla and find a Breath of Yesteryear
A trip into Colonial Australia as told by Cecil Roy Mackaway
This is an account of growing up in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney. The tales and the vernacular used are of an era now passed. Join Cecil as brings to life the world of colonial Aus’
For other books on travelling around Aus’ see “Around the Campfire” and the stories from “Discovering Australia and Her Lore”
Jan also writes novels on contemporary Aboriginal Australia. In The Dreaming Series, you will walk with the Shaman as they struggle to survive in a contemporary world. Each book from The Dreaming Series is a tale in its own right, each book will step you into a world hidden from your own.
To discover more of the ancient Aboriginal Lore, visit the page dedicated to exploring this Lore in “Australia an Ancient Land”.
Being welcomed into the Albany Shire as a traveller and freecamping life-styler has been a great experience. We have spent two weeks in the region (and quite a few bucks) in exploring the towns, sandy tracks, shores and inlets of the beautiful region. Our friends, finding little welcome in recreational bush camps in Esperance Shire, joined us in Albany Shire and together we explored many of the sandy 4×4 tracks, inlets and bays looking for good fishing and camping spots as well as seeking out local pubs and eateries for a lunchtime feasts and roving snacks. It was a LOT of fun!
What we discovered also were traces of our ancient Australian Lore and pre-history in legend that dates back into the ice ages, the last of which was some 20,000 years ago. I love that Australia has such a long history evident in this region. I love that I am so close the bedrock of creation and I love seeking out all those wonderful legends of creation, which can be found simply in the land around us. Legends and Lore which I try to bring to readers in my novels of The Dreaming Series and the growing series of tales of The Spirit Children.
With the new year comes the time to organise and reflect on the year past. I’m deep into this now, organising my writing and busy editing past posts. I’ve been blogging and writing publicly now for a few years and I’ve been with WordPress for about 18 months. I must admit I find the WordPress site the easiest to negotiate… even when they occasionally get it pear shaped with the date stamp thing as with one or two past blog. There simply is no better, or easier way to stay in contact with family, friends and my readers, as well as those great adventurers who you meet constantly on the road. Like souls and others who are living the dream and holding life by its horns as they tour the country.
My latest project has been to gather up my postings into some order, mostly for my elderly Mum who is wanting to read these and can’t manage a computer. Hence… I have released a anthology of my blogs in a pricey full colour print and a cheap large e-book both with many full colour pic’s. It has been an interesting exercise for me.
Millions of years ago, when life emerged from the waves it was stromatalites and thrombolites that made it possible. They breathed oxygen into the atmosphere and life eventually moved onto the land once water had begun to fall from the heavens, nourishing the earth. 600 million years ago the ancestors of thrombolites and stromatolites produced the oxygen needed for life on land to exist and their ancient colonies can be found today in only a few rare places around the world.
They look like rocks but are really ancient forms of microbial communities that produce energy from sunlight. These ancient forms of life are found in specialized environments around the world. They require water to survive. Stromatalites need saline water and thrombolites require a greater measure of fresh water.
Millions of years ago in Queensland an ocean covered the vast regions of the Outback plains. The Great Barrier Reef was inland by about a 500 klm and now these ancient reefs and silt beds lay buried beneath a hardened volcanic cap of a later epoch.
Ancient Australia – Inland Seas
We crossed and ocean today, it was an inland sea once, very like the Mediterranean, but now this one is beneath the silted rock and beds of ancient sands, it is the Great Artesian Basin. We were travelling up through inland Queensland, commonly known as a region of the Outback. A region bordered by the Carnarvon Ranges (Katjarra Ranges) to the west, a plateau section of the Great Dividing Range with the Pacific Ocean to the east. This area is now a vast plain… a flat land.
There is a wonderful tapestry, one that has always intrigued me, to be found in Government House in Canberra and it is in the Great Hall. It is a backdrop to the Grandest of reception rooms and while it is one that I love, I never imagined that I would find such a beautiful landscape. I imagined it drawn from the artists mind, an interpretation of a landscape that is instantly recognizable by any Aussie who is familiar with the Australian bush.
Jan Hawkins Author 