Mulka Cave & Ravensthorpe

This morning when we got up the weather was still cold and windy but not raining so we decided to take a look at Mulka’s cave which is about 13km past Wave Rock. There is some aboriginal rock art covering parts of the walls and ceiling of the cave mainly in the form of hand stencils of which there are over 140 examples representing both children and adults. We couldn’t see that many but some are very faded and there may be more in the next chamber but Fin couldn’t see them using a torch. They are being studied so I imagine they will find out more about them in time; all they know at the moment is that they were probably from a local clan called the Noongar who probably used it as a meeting place. The legend of the cave is that Mulka was the illegal son of a woman who fell in love with a man with whom marriage was forbidden and that for breaking those rules she bore a son with crossed eyes who couldn’t hunt due to his disability. Out of frustration, Mulka turned to catching and eating human children and he became the terror of the district. It was said he lived in Mulka’s cave where the imprints of his hands could be seen much higher than an average man. His mother became distressed by his behaviour but when she spoke to him about it he killed her then ashamed he fled the cave for the south. The mob was outraged by his behaviour and hunted him down, catching him near Dumbleyung 156km west of Hyden. Because he did not deserve a proper burial they left his body for the ants; a grim warning to those who break the law! An interesting story to say the least. There is a rock pool or gnamma hole in the seasonal creek nearby which would have been a focal point for aboriginal camp sites also. We got to look at the aboriginal artwork without any interruptions and were just about to leave when a small bus group arrived – what good timing!
Next stop, apart from a quick morning tea break would be Ravensthorpe where they have a wildflower show at the moment. What better way to see all the wildflowers in one place than at a show? We did stop briefly in Lake King for coffee and tried to shelter under the veranda of a building but the cold wind was blowing right in on us very strongly so we moved on as quickly as possible. We found the Ravensthorpe Wildflower show in the local hall and paid our $3 each to go inside and take a look at the displays. Basically, they had collected samples of the wildflowers of the district and put them in vases/bottles of water with labels in front of them. There was also a video running about wildflowers of Western Australia and the mandatory stall of wildflower related goodies. Some of the display flowers were looking a bit sad and dying but most were still OK and it was really interesting to see them up close and identify what they are too rather than just seeing them along the side of the road as we drive by or seeing them up close and wondering what they are. I took some photos of a few that took my fancy including some flowers from the mallee eucalyptus that grow in the region and some beautiful tiny orchids too. One is called a Rabbit Orchid and you can certainly see why! It is very small and cute and the spidery one in the photo is a little bigger but still a small orchid. We were amazed to see that there are a couple of native geraniums because we saw some along the beach path to the blowholes the other day and thought they must have been weeds that escaped a local garden. The native hibiscus is very pretty also; we saw them at the Bungle Bungles. The Red bell-fruited mallee is one I love and we saw it on the actual plant later on, sometimes on a low shrub and other times on a bigger one but so bright against all the grey-green of the gum leaves! I didn’t get photos of these but we did stop and take photos of the grass trees which are flowering at the moment and look amazing with their tall spike. This one is a bent one. Nothing wrong with that! The little mauve/purple flower growing nearby was pretty so it got photographed too. Of course if we stopped every time I wanted to take photos of wildflowers it would take forever to get to our next destination so I have to be content with the memory of the ones I don’t capture.
We are back on the coast now, in Esperance, and it is a little warmer here than inland but still windy today.