Climbing Flinders Peak

[khiemtran]

Although the mountains now known as the You Yangs are only small (364m at Flinders Peak, their highest point), they dominate the surrounding plains between Geelong and Melbourne. We're off on an expedition to climb Flinders Peak, which will Liem's first actual mountain. As we draw near, Liem looks at them thoughtfully and announces "I want to climb the smallest You Yang"...

Now, are we all ready?



And we're off!



Liem and his cousins are soon motoring off into the distance...



The explorer, Matthew Flinders first climbed this peak in 1802 (the year before William Buckley escaped) in order to survey the bay and surrounding terrain. At the time, he probably wouldn't have had any idea what he would see when he reached the summit.



After a few rest stops, we reach a special lookout. But what is there to see?



It's this, a modern geoglyph of Bunjil, the eaglehawk.



Note that this is not a traditional site, it was actually made in 2006, as part of the Commonwealth Games festival.



On we go towards the summit. Nearly there now...



Made it! And what did Matthew Flinders see when he reached the top?



For one thing, he saw large areas of flat plains, suitable for farming.



He could see the site which would one day be the city of Melbourne.



And, if he turned the other way, the future site of the city of Geelong.



And to the North-west, a glimpse of the plains of central Victoria.



He left some graffiti, of course, but at least he did it tastefully...



These days, there's also a light on top of the mountain as a navigation aid.



And a working quarry below...



A view of the bush in the fading light...



After scaling the peak, we still have just enough time for one more challenge. We set off again on a different trail...



Follow the trail until it meets Saddleback track, but around the water hole and soon you'll see...



The Bunjil geoglyph!



It's quite hard to make out its shape from ground level. The boys decide to circle it by jumping from rock to rock.



And now, the promised Bunjil story...



Once, when all the people were fighting, the sea became angry and began to rise, threatening the entire country with flood. The people went to Bunjil and pleaded for his help. Bunjil agreed to do so, but only if the people agreed to stop fighting and respect the laws and each other. Bunjil then stepped out into the water, raised his spear and order to sea to stop rising.

At one level, this seems like a simple moral tale. With so many different peoples in close proximity, co-operation was vital. Perhaps the sea was just a metaphorical one, representing the chaos caused by constant conflict. And, of course, all over the world, there are flood myths... But there's something else interesting here.

Did you notice that, at the end of the story, the sea only stopped rising? It didn't actually recede. That's it over there, still in its risen state, where Bunjil stopped it just before it flooded the plains.



The thing to note here is that we never had glaciers over here in the last Ice Age. Instead, the sea was much lower and all of Port Phillip Bay was a giant valley. There were also people living here all this time. This then raises the tantalising possibility that the story is actually an ancestral memory of the flooding of the bay at the end of the last Ice Age, some eight thousand years ago.

By the time we get back to the car, the sun is already setting...



We stop at Waurn Ponds on the way home, so the explorers can have some well-earned pizza. Another bit of trivia: Waurn Ponds actually takes its name from the Wathaurong term for a stone house. The local name for the eponymous chain-of-ponds is actually Jerringot, and the Wathaurong believed that a bunyip lived in at least one of them.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

This then raises the tantalising possibility that the story is actually an ancestral memory of the flooding of the bay at the end of the last Ice Age, some eight thousand years ago.

I'm convinced that oral tradition goes back much further than most people think. Here in Wales we have similar stories of rising water levels and in recent years underwater archaeologists have discovered the remains of settlements on what is now the sea bed. Similarly, the lakes which reputedly contain fairies once housed crannogs, lake dwellings on stilts.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It's a wonderful though, isn't it? We were having dinner with friends on Saturday night one of them mentioned a similar story in northern Australia where the lay of the "land" under the sea still matched up with the story.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Once again, gorgeous sky! I dearly miss my spirit-lifting/spiritual moments of watching a spectacular New Mexican sunset...

And once again (again), Liem is making me hungry with his pizza. :P

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

You don't get good sunsets in Egypt?

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Sadly I have yet to see any. First impediment: Too many buildings. Second: While there is adequate dust and abundant pollution (which can lend startling colors), there are hardly ever any clouds. So, interesting-ish swathes or washes of color but no real contrast and texture.

ETA: I forgot to say that we've yet to see a good one from the "deep" desert, being banned, as we are, from traveling there for the time being. And when we were on the Red Sea, with a much more open view of the horizon, we didn't see anything special either.

[rymrytr.livejournal.com]

It is fathers like you that keep the Life Form Quality Control Council from destroying this planet, under the qualifications of "an experiment gone horribly wrong"...

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

:) Hopefully, Liem will treasure these memories as much as I do...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining the graffitist who goes out armed with plaques and hammers and nails ^_^ He could carry different plaques for different purposes, from the traditional "Matthew Flinders was here, 1801" to "Matthew Flinders rules, y'all are fools" for when he's in a more boisterous mood, to maybe "MF + CW" when he finds a sweetheart, etc.

That's fascinating to think of people living through the continuous rise of the sea, and commemorating it in story.... like, I guess, we're doing now.

(lovely family photos, btw; reminds me of when we used to go hiking with the kids when they were young. And that sunset!)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating to think of people living through the continuous rise of the sea, and commemorating it in story.... like, I guess, we're doing now.

Yes, I wonder how people will summarize it in the future... "Once, long ago, when the people were fighting all the time..."