Deep in the Australian Bush, just north of Sydney, lies a hidden rocky crevice filled with Egyptian Hieroglyphs! They have no good reason to be there, but they are there nonetheless! It was a great excuse for an afternoon adventure with the kids!

I found out about this site whilst researching the walk to the Sphinx memorial, another Egyptian themed spot in Sydney. They were discovered in the 1970’s with rumours of their existence stretching back to the 1920’s, according to this Wikipedia article. However it seems the number of carvings increased in the 1970’s so they were either a set of 1920’s Glyphs that were added to in the 70’s after discovery or they were simply created in the 70’s & 80’s. They are of course not evidence of an ancient Egyptian civilisation in Sydney but something created more recently by someone having a bit of a laugh.

The 3km round trip walk begins at a parking bay at at the end of Bambara Rd, off Woy Woy Rd at Kariong. There are spots for at least ten cars.

We walked down the fire trail and was joined by a gorgeous brown butterfly for most of the walk. It was like it was guiding us! It was quite a lovely little forest walk. At the first left turn the terrain switched from fire trail to bush track but was easy to follow.

We soon reached the big old grandmother tree which is amazing to see in person. We knew we were close to our goal. There were numerous paths up or around but I knew we were looking for a “danger: boulders may fall” sign so soon found it and the way in to the crevice where the Glyphs were waiting.

The kids had some concerns here as the way in was through a hole in the rock and it looked a little scary. There was a bit of a rock scramble but we got through without incident!

And then there they were. The crevice was narrow and sloped upwards and was a special enough spot all on its own. But the walls! The walls were filled with Hieroglyphs and carvings on both sides, stretching all the way to the top and all along path. I read there were almost 300 all up. The kids were more than impressed and immediately started trying to interpret the story they thought was being told.

If I understood them properly, apparently some guy on a boat went searching for the Loch Ness monster, his boat was destroyed and they ended up on a island before being rescued and taken to Scotland! I suggest that it’s open to interpretation!

There were a few other families that turned up so it was quite a busy little trail. We spent about twenty minutes at the site then climbed up the crevice to meet the path back down to the trail. By the time we had returned to the car just over two hours had passed. When does graffiti stop being graffiti? I dunno, but this place seems to have nailed it. It turned out to be a fantastic way to spend an afternoon.