The Bundian Way: Mapping with Stories John Blay Abstract—The Bundian Way is a shared history pathway that Introduction to an Ancient connects the highest part of the Australian continent and the Pathway _________________________ south-eastern coast via an ancient Aboriginal route that brought together the people of the greater region. The Eden Local Aborigi- I’m going to tell you some stories about the Bundian Way. nal Land Council has long worked towards its use for educational/ That’s appropriate because the Bundian Way is a story in tourism purposes and recognition for heritage protection. In 2010 itself, one that is long and unfinished, and made up of many the Land Council began a survey of the route which resulted in strands. My aim here is to map its progress, through some New South Wales State Heritage listing on 18th January 2013. fragments and shorter stories, in the hope that this will While the Bundian Way is defined as a physical route, its stories be helpful to those who might follow. Our mapping of the link a variety of Aboriginal landscapes through time and space. For landscape has many layers. My part in it really started when example, some special places along the route are suited to formal I first met BJ Cruse, Chair of the Eden Local Aboriginal Aboriginal Place recognition. These are all significant places with Land Council, more than 10 years ago. I was working on a strong, inter-linking stories. Therefore, though the old song-stories South East Forests history project that covered vast tracts that identified the route have partly been lost due to the impact of of national park and wilderness in the bottom corner of the European settlement, even today the richest way to map the route Australian continent, to the east and south of its highest is through story. Not with a physical map, but a mental one, one point at Mt Kosciuszko. Part of the project involved map- you can carry in mind. As it was in the beginning, before history ping the old Aboriginal routes of passage. BJ expressed his arrived with the Europeans. enthusiasm for a particular way that ran from the whale Figure 1—New South Wales State Heritage listing was granted in January 2013 and a line has been identified to appear on maps as the Bundian Way. John Blay is Chair of the Bundian Way Management Committee and the Bundian Way Project Officer for Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council, 17 Bay St, Eden, NSW Australia 2551. Email: [email protected] In: Watson, Alan; Carver, Stephen; Krenova, Zdenka; McBride, Brooke, comps. 2015. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Tenth World Wilderness Congress symposium; 2013, 4-10 October; Salamanca, Spain. Proceedings RMRS-P-74. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 208 p. USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-74. 2015 67 Blay The Bundian Way: Mapping with Stories places of Twofold Bay to the high country of the Australian Targangal ________________________ Alps where the old people used to gather to socialise, trade and have ceremonies in the summertime when the Bogongs My first walk in Kosciuszko National Park reveals the were present. These moths were roasted to provide a food for high country as a reflective place, intensely beautiful, dra- the gathering that was good to eat and nutritious. matic with constantly changing degrees of light, its beauty We soon became good friends and worked together in a nonetheless haunted by ever-present threat. Even on a spirit of brotherhood to find whether there was part of the blissfully sunny summer day, the blizzards can suddenly network of ancient pathways that was still in a suitable state take command. Snow sweeps the landscape in front of winds for recognition. He mostly attended to the Aboriginal cultural that can bowl you head over heels. side of the ancient pathway while I looked to the shared The old Aboriginal people treated the high country snow- history. His people, the Aboriginal people of the south east, grassland with the gravest respect, visiting reverently when are also known as Kooris. They have occupied the country they ventured there after the Bogongs that massed in the since the Dreamtime. An Aboriginal presence on the conti- westerly facing granite crags for a summer time aestiva- nent stretches back beyond 50,000 years. The Kooris have tion. It is quite amazing to consider that as you pass the modernised along with the rest of Australian society, but Bogong places of rocky North Ramshead at about 2000 m, during the C19th they were wrenched from their traditional the landscape and wild vistas would look much as they way of life by European settlers and then, during the 1880s did a thousand years ago. Here you’ve moved beyond the and 90s, they were forcibly removed from their traditional ant-trails that direct so many visitors through townships lands onto missions and government reserves where travel from one tourist destination to the next, and the bustling of was restricted and the old customs and languages were tourists recedes from consciousness. For the next one third banned. But in spite of the heavy-handed efforts of govern- of the Bundian Way, through Kosciuszko National Park, a ment, the Kooris and their culture have survived. Our aim distance of more than a hundred kilometres, you cross only was that recognition of a route might provide a focus for two public roads. the expression of Koori culture and Country. And also, as Of all the places along the route, and I have now walked it a public walking route, it would tell the story of European many times, I find the Great Divide near Targangal (one old settlement along the route and the history of what happened Aboriginal name for Mt Kosciuszko) the most enchanting. In to its Aboriginal people. spring and summertime, there are slowly melting patches of ice while the ground in between reveals a rainbow mat of Figure 2—Through Kosciuszko National Park, a distance of more than a hundred kilometres, you cross only two public roads. 68 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-74. 2015 The Bundian Way: Mapping with Stories Blay alpine wildflowers. It makes a seriously wonderful walk— moth hunting in the high country during summer. If I were perhaps wander would be the better word—of about a half to express its route in a simple story song, it would go: from day. Or a day, maybe two. A week there would be even better. Targangal pass just to the north of the Pilot, just to the And it’s never quite the same from one moment to the next. north of Tingaringy, just to the north of the Delegate and then just to the south of the Coolangubra, follow the ridges around Balawan to the sea. Naming the Bundian Way ___________ Many say it is one of the best walks in the world because it is the most varied, running as it does between the highest After some initial explorations, as we have done so often, I point of the continent and the coast, and especially because sat down with BJ to figure out how to deal with findings that of its extraordinary story. Along its route no day’s walk is we considered quite remarkable. From all the evidence, we quite like the next. Some are so different it’s as if you have believed we had found pathways that were many thousands stepped onto a different planet. Having now followed it of years old, far older than the Pyramids or the Silk Road. many times, my excitement levels rise just thinking about These paths have many names: mountain passes, walking it. There’s so much to it, so much to see and do. So much routes, dreaming tracks, roads, songlines, routes of passage, that is way beyond the ordinary. transhumance, traditional routes and so forth. BJ Cruse sees an important role for the Bundian Way. ‘It In the 1820s and 30s when the European pioneers arrived is,’ he says, ‘all about connection.’ And I realise that I most in the SE region of Australia they found the rugged, deeply feel connected to that country through the Aboriginal vision, dissected mountainous country of the coastal ranges a bar- past and present interwoven, with my civilisation like a gloss rier to settlement. Produce of the Monaro, for example, was on the surface. That’s how I have now come to understand too difficult to get to market without roads. Travelling and my country. It’s the way that rings truest. sending freight by sea required access to the nearest harbour In some parts we find how the old pathway is still close to in Eden. The old Aboriginal clans of the region came to the its original form. BJ says the route should be more widely rescue and showed their ancient pathways to the settlers. acknowledged; protected from being bulldozed during fire These became the first roads. And not only did the Aboriginal emergencies, for example, or turned into roads. ‘That’s the people show the settlers the best travelling routes, they also sad truth,’ he tells me. ‘Today some people would recognise showed them the best places to establish their farms. ‘Why it the Bundian Way by covering it with bitumen, whereas the was the blacks, and nobody else who opened up the country…’ old Kooris could recognise it in song. We’ve gotta protect it said Bernard O’Rourke, one of the first to settle the region from people who don’t understand.’ in 1843.