For several years in the mid 1990’s we went on long walks in the Kimberly in NW Western Australia.  We were usually a party of 4, living off the land and totally self suffient for 4-6 weeks.  Since we knew the elders of the Aboriginal tribes we had permission to walk in the country. We got to know the land very well.

We were interested in the Bradshaw figures, a strikingly beautiful form of rock art with black silhouettes.  They were painted somewhere between 6,000 and 16,000 years ago, and are not related to any of the current tribes in the area.  The art is similar, and simpler, than the Xray figures of Arnhem Land.

In all we were in the bush for about 200 days, walked about 1200 km along all the major rivers and saw about 4,000 paintings.  Here are some of them, reproduced to scale by me from onsite drawings.