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Destinations > Black Mountain NP
Black Mountain NP
Issue: July 2002
Words and photos by Dick Eussen
Cooktown has some outstanding and intriguing natural features. One of the most phenomenal is in the World Heritage listed Black Mountain National Park on the Black Trevethan Range, some 30km south of Cooktown. 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.
The Park is located on the northern side of the junction of the Bloomfield Road and the Cooktown Road, a short distance north from the Annan River Bridge. In fact the Cooktown Road runs right through a high gap between two mountains of stones. There is a lookout and viewing platform, plus off road parking next to the road. It makes for a welcome stop and gives great views of the black rocky hills.
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The Dreamtime Stories.
The Black Mountain has been the subject of legends and tales since the first people saw it. To the Aborigines it formed the border marker of the Kuku Bidiji and the Kuku Yimudji people. While the whole mountain is sacred, there are four very important places or story places of both mythology and religious significance to both clans. Kambi is a cave where many bats live, while Julnabu is a kangaroo shaped rock which looks north. There is also Birmba, a resting place for the Sulpher Crested Cockatoo. It can be seen from the Lions Den at Helenvale.
Jalbamn is a taboo place to women and located near the old road to the east which went around the range, instead of through it as the new road does. Foods gathered from this place, which contains a pocket of fine rainforest, were not allowed to be eaten by women.
Modern Legends & Lies
The Black Mountains attracts more stories than any similar place because it is located in a place which first attracted tin miners at the turn of the century. Many of the miners were Welsh and Irish, both having a reputation of telling a good yarn and being very superstitious to boot. Even today there are tales told about the mountain by people living near it that border on the dreamtime lore of the Aboriginals.
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Words and photos by Dick Eussen
Cooktown has some outstanding and intriguing natural features. One of the most phenomenal is in the World Heritage listed Black Mountain National Park on the Black Trevethan Range, some 30km south of Cooktown. 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.
The Park is located on the northern side of the junction of the Bloomfield Road and the Cooktown Road, a short distance north from the Annan River Bridge. In fact the Cooktown Road runs right through a high gap between two mountains of stones. There is a lookout and viewing platform, plus off road parking next to the road. It makes for a welcome stop and gives great views of the black rocky hills.
read on below advertisement
The Dreamtime Stories.
The Black Mountain has been the subject of legends and tales since the first people saw it. To the Aborigines it formed the border marker of the Kuku Bidiji and the Kuku Yimudji people. While the whole mountain is sacred, there are four very important places or story places of both mythology and religious significance to both clans. Kambi is a cave where many bats live, while Julnabu is a kangaroo shaped rock which looks north. There is also Birmba, a resting place for the Sulpher Crested Cockatoo. It can be seen from the Lions Den at Helenvale.
Jalbamn is a taboo place to women and located near the old road to the east which went around the range, instead of through it as the new road does. Foods gathered from this place, which contains a pocket of fine rainforest, were not allowed to be eaten by women.
Modern Legends & Lies
The Black Mountains attracts more stories than any similar place because it is located in a place which first attracted tin miners at the turn of the century. Many of the miners were Welsh and Irish, both having a reputation of telling a good yarn and being very superstitious to boot. Even today there are tales told about the mountain by people living near it that border on the dreamtime lore of the Aboriginals.
next page »
