Here comes more.
Black Mountain near Cooktown is an eerie jumble of black caravan and car sized rocks piled into a treeless mountain. Our Aborigines won't go near it as many people have scrambled in and disappeared. I climbed up a short distance and my dog would go no further. Throw a yonnie down and you hear it bounce into the black depths. A team of cavers entered and found that below ground level deep water goes on down, they came out saying that they never had the right gear to explore, then bolted.
Rumour has it that it is infested with big pythons. Tried to ignore the bad feeling the place has but can realize why our aborigines keep away; they have a better warning system than whites. Little rock wallabies around the edges would feed the pythons. If you want to feel bad spirits go there.
My friend tells me that an even bigger pile is up the coast a bit but no access to it except by sea.
Okie Dokie. Let's have a little look at this one.
I'll bet some people think Old Bob and me are making all this malarky up as we go. Not so! Some of it's even in real books and stuff, although a few items haven't quite made it through peer review yet.
Black Mountain
©Australian Explorer.com
The boundary line between this dimension and the next can be made out in the centre of the picture. I stitched two photographs together to get this view, that's why there's a seam down the middle.
According to the
Geological Society of Australia Inc (Qld Division), this is what it is:
Geological Society of Australia said:
BLACK MOUNTAIN, COOKTOWN
This enormous heap of boulders is not a result of a volcanic eruption, but has accumulated during the weathering and decomposition of a body of granite rock known as the Trevethan Granite.
The granite was originally intruded as a molten mass deep below the surface, where it solidified about 240 million years ago in Permian times.
Erosion gradually removed the rocks above and exposed the top of the granite body. This was sparsely fractured, and weathering and
decomposition could advance further only down these few weaknesses, to leave large rectangular corestones in between.
Once isolated by removal of the weathering debris, the corestones suffered little further deterioration, apart from rounding of their corners.
As erosion and lowering of the surrounding land surface proceeded over millions of years, more and more corestones were left piled up over the granite mass.
Other smaller boulder mountains are known in north Queensland and appear to be a feature of humid tropical climates. The black colour is only a coating of lichens and inside the granite is pinkish grey.
Yes, well, that's all very nice, but what about the legends?
Overlander.com has this to say:
These giant piles of granite boulders have been the subject of Aboriginal and European legends and leg pulling for decades. Even the Aboriginals have been guilty of the latter and some well meaning people have gone away thinking that they have got the real mythology, only to be the subject of a new corroboree in the old days and a few laughs today.
The locals will tell you yarns about the mountain that will make your ears curl and the hair stand up on edge. They always know someone who has climbed it, got lost in the caves or someone who has vanished forever.
Well, I can't leave it at that without my own story.
There are indeed similar outcrops to this along the coast up on the Cape, and I know of at least one that's accessible from the Daintree-Cape Trib road. It's at a place called
Bouncing Boulders, or something like that, and the rocks there (my guess is basalt) bounce off each other like rubber balls when you throw them.
Here's a quote from
another forum that discusses this phenomena:
Jim said:
Rocks do bounce like tennis balls if you can find them.
The only place I know that they exist is between Cape Tribulation and the Bloomfield River in North QLD. It used to be (about 10 years ago) signposted on the track until it was declared an Aboriginal Sacred Site and the signs were taken down. Hard to find now.
Does anyone have GPS co-ordinates? It was a fascninating place and it is sad that it cannot be enjoyed any longer by everyone.
Cheers,
Jim.
While we're on the subject of Far North Queensland Aboriginal legends about boulders that swallow people, here's a story about a place that I've visited many times, and hardly ever disappeared.
It's from a trip report at
Travel Library.com
Babinda Boulders
There's a swimming hole south of Cairns that has claimed quite a few lives over the years. Aboriginal legend has it that a young maiden drowned herself there after being rejected; she now haunts the boulders, taking the lives of any unmarried men who are foolish enough to swim there. Plenty have scoffed, and plenty have drowned. I'm a skeptic, so I felt compelled to swim there, but we, er, ran out of time.
paul
[email protected]
______________________________________
Also the locals guided us to the most beautiful water fall and large rock pool hidden in the scrub behind Cooktown. A lovely place in winter,sandfly city in the wet season. A nat. park that has casawaries with legs like footballers and a few snakes. One nasty bug we forgot to talk about is assassin bugs, come in sizes from half inch to two inch, had a big one bite me on the leg years ago giving me osteoarthritis in the knee. Got complety rid of it with a zappa and black walnut hull juice thanks to my wife and Helda Clarke.(bloody doctors were useless) A number of bites killed Cook's botanist Charles Banks, as he was studying them. Not seen much but we do have them.
Geez mate, there's about six new topics in that paragraph.
I'm on it.
Cheers,
Dave
Well, at least you won't have far to look. lionking.
