What it's really like to visit the 50,000-year-old rock art in WA

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The road to the main viewing area for Murujuga's 50,000-year-old art is past Woodside's giant gas mining and export hub. Subscribe now for unlimited access.
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By Saffron Howden
As you listen to the ancient stories of lore and culture carved into rocks before you, the tangle of cranes, tanks, buildings and towers typical of huge industrial facilities sit at your back.
Ngarluma woman and Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation senior ranger Sarah Hicks explaining rock art to visitors at the Murujuga Cultural Landscape outside Karratha in Western Australia's north west. Inset, the nearby industrial facilities, including Woodside's gas operations. Pictures by Saffron Howden
The carvings - at least one million of them - are spread over a series rock outcrops on the Burrup peninsula and surrounding islands just outside Karratha in north-west Western Australia.
"This is like a massive database," our guide, Ngarluma woman Sarah Hicks, says.
History and knowledge are recorded in each image.
A dissected kangaroo is an instructional image showing how to carve up the animal and use its parts for food, blankets, pants and combs.
A rock engraving of what is thought to be a dissected kangaroo - the face is on the top right of the stone - in the Murujuga Cultural Landscape outside Karratha in Western Australia's north west. Picture by Saffron Howden
An emu, or jankurna, engraving reflects the emu-shaped spaces and dust lanes of the Milky Way in the night sky, a guide to the seasons and when to hunt.
A Tasmanian tiger records the extinct marsupial's presence thousands of years ago on the Australian mainland.
A prehistoric fat-tailed kangaroo, mangguru, is depicted standing on four legs in its massive megafauna state, long before it evolved to hopping.
A rock engraving of what is thought to be a megafauna kangaroo depicted on four legs in the Murujuga Cultural Landscape outside Karratha in Western Australia's north west. Picture by Saffron Howden
As we walk and talk, small rock wallabies navigate the hardy red stones on the outcrop peaks.
Ms Hicks says the presence of living animals on our visit is a good sign.
There are carvings everywhere, some more faded - and older - than others. There are whales and stingrays, mice and fish tails, dingoes, quolls, goannas, spears - and people.
A rock engraving of what is thought to be a whale spouting water in the Murujuga Cultural Landscape outside Karratha in Western Australia's north west. Picture by Saffron Howden
Though we are asked not to take photographs of depictions of people.
The outback collection - the world's largest, densest and most diverse collection of rock art engravings - is still revealing its secrets.
A women's business carving of a hand was newly discovered and catalogued only weeks ago, Ms Hicks said.
The bloodwood sap boiled with water to treat illness, the sticky spinifex grass (baru) burnt to make strong glue for spears and axes, the flowers that reveal when to fish depending on their bloom, and the bush tomatoes that taste like a mixture of squash and capsicum.
A rock engraving of two snakes in the Murujuga Cultural Landscape outside Karratha in Western Australia's north west. Picture by Saffron Howden
She's assisted by young Ngarluma man Riley Sebastian, a ranger still learning.
He confesses he's never tried a bush tomato or sap medicine, but Ms Hicks says local elders still consume both.
As the talk ends, our small group of well-to-do east coasters and European tourists pass a team of air quality monitors checking emissions levels from the nearby gas and fertiliser plants and iron ore and salt export facilities.
We turn back to the dystopian landscape dominated by the machinery of natural resource extraction.
The large industrial operations, including Woodside's north west shelf gas hub, on the Burrup peninsula near Karratha in Western Australia as seen from the Murujuga rock art gallery area. Picture by Saffron Howden
The contrast could not be more stark.
Woodside says it's committed to "protecting and managing this precious and culturally significant place".
"Woodside has taken and continues to take proactive steps - including through emissions reduction, data sharing and ongoing support for the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program (MRAMP) - to ensure we manage our impacts responsibly," a spokesman said.
He said recent research shows the landscape and its ancient art can live alongside the gas operations with responsible management. How will history record us?
For at least 47,000 years the Ngarluma, Mardudhunera, Yaburara, Yindjibarndi, and Wong-Goo-Tt-Oo peoples have slowly, carefully managed their relationship with the Pilbara land, sea and their wildlife.
That record of management exists in the Murujuga petroglyphs.
If the elders were still carving records into the rocks today, I wonder how they would tell the story of the oil and gas operations on their doorstep.
Words by Saffron Howden
Saffron is a journalist, editor and author with more than 20 years experience covering news. Get in touch: [e-mail]