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attention, the Black Summer bushfires expose
further evidence of remarkable ingenuity at
an ancient Aboriginal settlement.
Gunditjmara people lived in
elaborate houses such as this, made
from basalt rocks with reed roofs.
“I was lucky enough to be one of the people to go over,” Aaron explains proudly. “I had the experience of sitting in the 43rd session of the World Heritage meeting [at Baku, in Azerbaijan] while they did all the nominations.”
Located north of Portland in Victoria’s far west, the fish traps and Lake Condah are places that powerfully repudiate the notion that Australia’s indigenous peoples led only a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Unexpectedly, however, the area’s status was further boosted when, in December last year, devastating bushfires raced through 7000ha of the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape around Lake Condah and in the Budj Bim National Park. The blazes laid bare new evidence of aquaculture channels previously hidden by dense undergrowth.
At the time, Denis Rose, project manager with the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, explained to news media that his ancestors had carved the channels from lava flows to divert streams and trap eels. “It was only maybe 20m off the track that we walk in and it was hidden in the long grass and the bracken fern and other vegetation,” Denis said. Not only is it more evidence to support the international recognition already achieved by the World Heritage listing, it reinforces a new, widespread appreciation for the early agricultural sophistication of Australia’s Aboriginal people.
Today, I’m a guest on a two-hour Budj Bim Tour of the heritage landscape here, and Aaron is one of my guides. The tour offers extraordinary insight to an ancient settlement that was taking advantage of the area’s rich natural resources many millennia ago. There’s clear physical evidence of annual fishing in Lake Condah and comfortable and permanent houses with walls built from volcanic basalt stones and roofs made from local reeds. There’s evidence too of beautifully constructed fishnets and fires used to smoke the eels abounding in the streams flowing from here to the ocean.
Behind this community lies an extraordinary story dating back 27,000 years to when Budj Bim (Mt Eccles) erupted. For the next 20,000 years, more eruptions saw successive layers of lava flow south across the landscape. Frothy scoria lava covered the land and fractured into blocks and slabs that,
Aaron, and his fellow Gunditjmara guides, is eager to explain the wonder of this early (and continuing) application of aquaculture. He says: “In the beginning, the ancestral creator, Budj Bim, created the lava flow and then created the streams. The lava solidified about 9000–8000 years ago and became a great resource for the Gunditjmara. We created our stone huts out of it. We figured out a way to harvest eels just by using the rocks and we even figured out how to cut channels into the bedrock. It was pretty hard to dig a channel into the rock without machinery… The mobs on Budj Bim were more settled because of the resource of the rock.”
STANDING BESIDE the reed-rich, gently flowing Darlot Creek, Aaron goes on to explain that in Gunditjmara language it is described as calara, which means it’s always there – a permanent source. He then recounts the extraordinary life cycle of the short-finned eels that live in the swamps and the eel traps developed by the Gunditjmara, which archaeologists have dated to be at least 6500 years old.
“We had to chuck in food for the eels,” Aaron explains. “They are carnivorous. They will eat kangaroo meat and they can travel across land for short distances. They can spend more than an hour out of the water. Traditionally, the old people used to eat about 60 a week. They were very high in fat and protein. The people used to find a little gap and put an eel trap in it. We took all we needed and not all we wanted, which was why it was so sustainable.”
Freshwater eels have a fascinating life cycle (see AG 151). They spend many years in these systems and when ready to breed they’ll spend about a month in the shallow water foraging, where they fatten and turn silver. Aboriginal rangers here have been tagging and tracking the eels. “Around ▶
Eel traps come in different shapes and sizes. At Lake Condah there are about 13 systems of eel traps. Within each are five or 10 different channels built into the bedrock at different elevations. “Those systems were built without any machinery. It is the world’s oldest agricultural system – [from] 6500 years ago,” Aaron says.
As we walk past the creek and the marshes, he explains how the women picked the reeds from the swamps and creeks and crafted them into fishnets. Beyond the creek and the eel traps lie the houses. As early as 1840, Europeans in the area were documenting communities, often of 20–30 dwellings, of beehive-shaped, waterproof, domed structures approximately 3.5m wide by 2.8 high.
Today, there’s a small group of three houses that have been carefully re-created. “In total there were 70 houses recorded on this site and they were all facing in a north-easterly direction,” Aaron explains. “The prevailing wind came from the back of the hut and the sun came from a direction designed to wake you up in the morning. It could get very cold and the houses were close together so they could have a communal fire.”
Our tour moves on to the swamps where Aaron recounts how the reeds were used to make the fish traps: “The grass is only picked by the women. Back in the mission days, Aunty Connie Hart was probably the last known basket weaver.
Our group walks across the marshland to a narrow channel that has been cut into the basalt. To imagine how it was cut without the benefit of modern tools is to marvel at the creativity of the Gunditjmara. Aaron explains: “You have to light fires on top of the bedrock. The volcanic rock is very porous. It has air pockets in it. Get it hot enough and you can smash it with a bigger rock. You create a channel and water can trickle through and the eels will use the channels. You create a situation where it’s easier to catch the eels.”
The tour ends with everyone sitting or standing in a circle and observing a minute’s silence. It’s a special place here at Tyrendarra, where we have experienced the wonder of early aquaculture. Then, finally, a delightful demonstration of continuity is offered at lunch when the tour group returns to Budj Bim HQ to be offered smoked eel on slices of a baguette. The baguette may not have existed here 6500 years ago but partaking of the smoked eel is participating in a culinary delight that has remained unchanged.
We tend to consider bird species we see in our gardens as ‘local’ to our area. But many are highly migratory, travelling seasonally along set paths in Australia or to and from other countries. Others are nomadic, wandering in search of food. Many of you may know of the annual wader migrations, when huge numbers of shorebirds arrive in Australia in spring and summer, escaping Northern Hemisphere winter (AG 149). Many land birds – especially those that eat nectar, fruit, seeds and insects – also migrate. The silvereye – part of the group known as white-eyes, due to the conspicuous white ring around their eyes – shows a range of plumage in Australia, but all are generally coloured green. Birds in the east have a grey back and, when breeding, a yellow throat, white on the undertail and pale buff flanks.
Tasmanian birds have darker flanks, a grey throat and yellow on the undertail.Each autumn, most Tasmanian silvereyes cross Bass Strait to form large mixed fl ocks with their mainland cousins and other passerines, including pardalotes and honeyeaters, as they head north along the Great Dividing Range and coastal plains for the winter. Some travel as far as Queensland.
Eastern koels and channel-billed cuckoos are summer visitors to south-eastern Australia. They return north to Indonesia and New Guinea in autumn. Dollarbirds follow a similar migration pattern. Rainbow bee-eaters from northern Australia visit southern states (except Tasmania) during summer and leave in autumn. The flame
robin is a non-breeding winter visitor to low-altitude parts of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania. They typically arrive in April and return to the higher ranges in mid-August. The scarlet robins of the country’s south-east and south-west move, in winter, from forests and woodlands to more open areas, including grasslands and gardens.
In the Adelaide region, cockatiels and budgerigars can arrive in spring. Cuckoos, including the Horsfield’s bronze, pallid and fan-tailed cuckoos, appear in autumn and early winter.
And those gang-gangs I saw? They move in winter from the high forests of south-eastern Australia to the lower altitudes.
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