Winter 2019 - OZ 16 Murphy’s Haystacks (Part 2) Aborigines

2019 - OZ  16   Murphy’s Haystacks (Part 2) Aborigines

I could not find anything about the ‘use’ of the Haystacks online.

Look Over There

In my head I saw some pictures I am going to write down now, none of these pictures are supported by fact. I am just fantasizing.

“Meet me at the haystacks”: is what I would have said if I were living as an Aborigine in years ago, old Australia. 

In a flat, treeless area like the Nullarbor nearby, these Haystacks stand out. OK, they are not like Uluru, the famous Giant of a Rock in the middle of Australia, but never-the-less, one can see the Haystacks from a fair distance away. A slight rise in the landscape makes them even more obvious. Today the area around the Haystacks is ‘farmland’ but in the times of the Aborigine it was a natural meeting place. 

It Was This Big

While visiting I looked for traces of ‘habitation’ but there are none. I guess Aborigines did not leave graffiti or any markings on the stones, none that I saw. I am sure other people looked for some signs of ‘life’ from years back but no, those rocks are clean.

We had wind blowing around us while there and it was a good thing. It cooled off some of the air that brooded down on us. The wind also made the flies, ever present in these parts, bearable.

 

Haystacks Are On Murphy's Land

It must have seemed strange to see rocks sticking out of the landscape, even for the old inhabitants of Australia. The rocks have strange forms and are set in ‘groups’, kind of small families of rocks. Some puny trees try to get a toehold on the scrappy soil and some grow for a few years, but others do not.  Survival of the fittest is even seen here, among the stones, among the trees.

Think I'll Have a Nap

The wind carved the formations we see today, the weird shapes that are visible to us.  This carving is still going on, imperceptible, but yes, these rocks are still being sculpted by Mother Nature.

I can only perceive that this spot must have been a natural meeting ground for the folks who lived around here. It had to be a natural meeting ground. It also had to be a place to sleep, find protection from the seemingly ever present wind. And the shapes of the rocks must have led to stories about their creation, their mystical meanings.

Yet when I searched for any information on what those dream stories could have been, I found nothing on line.

From a Distance They Looked Like Haystacks to the Danish Agriculturist

The Danish Agriculturist who coined the name ‘haystack’ based all his ‘knowledge’ on his home lands’ way of growing things. He was totally ignorant of a deeper, different way of living in a land that time forgot.

Eons from now those haystacks might only be mole hill size, erosion is still going on. We humans have a limited knowledge of how things work. We are a bit like this Danish guy, we judge things by what we ‘know’ but there are different forces that guide the world around us.

 

Strange Shapes

I loved the idea that humans were here before me but left no trace that they ‘lived’ here.

I hope, for the future, others can say that about us, that we just came and looked and did not leave any ‘graffiti’ behind, did not leave a mark on the land, did not upset what Mother Nature so carefully and timelessly preserved for us.

The Haystacks were occupied by the Aboriginals, I am sure of it. They just had to know about this spot on earth… yet they left no trace of themselves.

I think that is wonderful.

Winter 2019 - OZ 15 Murphy’s Haystacks (Part 1) Soil

2019 - OZ  15 Murphy’s Haystacks (Part 1) Soil

When you think of Australia you must think in millions of years.

The Geology of Australia Includes Virtually All Known Rock Types and From All
Geographical Time Periods Spanning Over 3.8 Billion Years of the Earth's History

Unusual Flowers

It is not at all what the rest of the world is like. The more I dug into my surroundings, the more I realized how Australia is different.

We all know that the animal world is very unlike any other when we think of Australia.

Nowhere else do you find kangaroos!   

When it comes to people:  no other people used a boomerang for hunting.  No meaningful contact with outsiders for 40,000 years is being taught.

The plant life is different too, way different. Most of the plants in Australia are endemic to certain regions. Plants developed into the present day species over millennia.

Black Opal on the Left

No place else in the world can you find Opal Jewels like you find in Australia. Just see the chart of substrata on the continent to understand the complexity of what is Australia.

 
And all of that has to do with the soil in Australia; or the chemical composition of the soil in various sections of this continent. Or is it that time makes soil less fertile? Or that geology, the lay of the land, ultimately has a more profound long term effect than previously thought.

It is no accident that things are different in Australia; it goes back millions of years. It started with Geology (I believe), the beginning of this block of Earth. It started when the magma cooled down and left stones and rocks in its place.

Sand in the Cracks Dated at More Than 33,600 Years Old.

 

They Were Huge

And when you look at these Haystacks, you are looking at rock formations that were created about 150 million years ago. And the rocks you are looking at were at one time covered by about 10 meters of ‘soil’. I mean there was ‘soil’ on top of those stones, 10 meters on top of these stones!

The ‘soil’ we see today, the soil we walk on in Australia, is really a substratum of the ‘soil’ Australia had millions of years ago.

Naturally, even in Europe or the Americas, or any other continent we would have a different environment ‘if’ we lived on the ground as it is now, but 20 meters below the present surface.

 

Opal Mining

It is no accident that Australia has so many mines, that we harvest so many raw materials from its soil.  Australia has ‘strange’ soils today that do not support the growth of grass, trees, or plants as we know them; especially around the Nullarbor Plains, a more-or-less desert.

So, Oak Trees from Norway do not necessarily grow well in this part of Australia.

Bamboo needs a soil so that its roots can grow underground. It just would not work well in most of this part of Australia.

Dates, figs, or even just palm trees do not really do well on the Nullarbor Plain. The soil does not have the zinc, potassium, calcium, etc. the plants need.

No Idea What This Fruit Is

So all the plant life I saw is a bit different from the rest of the world, unless, of course, Plants were imported, then adapted and now strives or even ravages the country side, because the imported plant has no competition.

Ecology in Australia is a complicated subject, see the article Rain Forest, explaining some aspects of the Nullarbor Plains.

The Haystacks have an amusing history, read on how they got their names.  

But this article is a bit better; it talks more about the erosion that caused the stones to protrude.     

Modern research into Australia’s past brings forth a totally different picture than what was taught in schools. Stereotype beliefs are challenged and old superstitions might prevail but turn out to be wrong.

On the left side of an article I found, of ‘The Myth of the World’s Oldest Culture”, are more subjects that, if you want to read them, share some conflicting views of Australia today.