Driving Routes
Red Hands Cave
- Company
- Red Hands Cave
- Street Address
-
Blue Mountains National Park,
Great Western Highway Blackheath NSW 2785 Australia
- Toll Free
- 1300 653 408
This Red Hands Cave site is one of the best examples of Aboriginal art in the Blue Mountains National Park. The cave is a gallery of fine hand stencils and
hand prints, created between 500 and 1600 years ago. Many of the stencils and prints overlap, making it difficult to see how many hands there are.
Stencils are also a sign of respect for Country, and have a deep spiritual connection with the land. To make the stencils, Aboriginal people placed one
hand against the cave wall and blew a mixture of ochre and water from their mouths. When the hand was removed, a stencilled outline was left behind. At
other times, people covered their hands with ochre and placed them on the wall, leaving an imprint.
You can get to the cave along the Red Hands Cave Track, which will also take you past some axe grinding grooves beside Camp Fire Creek. You might see
grooves like this elsewhere in the park, usually on flat rocks beside water. They show where wedges of volcanic rock were ground into axe blades against
the sandstone rock.
Additional Details
Opening Times
Accessible at all times
Activities
Bushwalking
Experiences
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, The Arts, Flora/Fauna, Nature based
Category: Attraction