Muz Kayak
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muzdesac.bsky.social
Muz Kayak
@muzdesac.bsky.social
Builder, kayaker, lousy cook, atheist, anything water-related 🌊. Mostly irresponsible.
November 13, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Murujuga is undoubtedly the most irreplaceable snapshot of the history of humans in the southern hemisphere.

Demand YOUR government protects it forever- for YOUR grandchildren.
November 10, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Shell middens. Seed grinding stones. Stone implements. Carvings of tribal ceremonies, rain dances, food preparation, teaching children.

Murujuga is not just rock glyphs - it's a library, a historical resource, an ancient but contemporary education facility for the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi.
November 10, 2025 at 12:08 AM
Our young guide Sara is an emerging tribal elder - educated in the Seven Sisters lore by her desert people. She cannot show us some of the works here, and requested that we do not take pictures of ANY human faces in the glyphs - there are firm boundaries between women's and men's business here.
November 10, 2025 at 12:03 AM
This one photo has more than 20 discernible carvings in it.
November 9, 2025 at 11:59 PM
The rocks here are called gabbyon. Igneous rocks, extremely hard. The difficulty of chipping centimetres deep into them with stone tools, defies belief. Yet the diversity of glyphs, and the scaling and accuracy, is astonishing.
November 9, 2025 at 11:58 PM
There are Gondwana-era mega-fauna recorded here - shorter legged oversize kangaroos, giant emus with a backwards toe. Thylacines, but striped all over. Longer bodied stingrays. Giant quolls.
November 9, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Murujuga is the heartland of the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi peoples, and they retain a deep and powerful spiritual and cultural connection to this place.

The publicly accessible areas are a small sample of over a million carvings here.
November 9, 2025 at 11:54 PM
The EARLIEST identified specimens here are pre-Ice Age, and are now underwater due to rising sea levels.
November 9, 2025 at 11:52 PM
This is Murujuga National Park, site of the largest collection of rock art carvings in the world.

The oldest depiction of a human face anywhere in the world is HERE.

The LATEST dated specimens here are hundreds of years older than the Pyramids.

This is Gondwanalands history, encapsulated.🧵
November 9, 2025 at 11:49 PM
The huge increase in helicopter flights from Broome, and their hot-refuelling operations at Djarindjin on the Dampier Peninsula, will be the death knell of that pristine environment, and many of the endangered birds who've made Roebuck Bay their home for millenia.

SAVE SCOTT REEF
SAY NO TO BROWSE 🚫
October 25, 2025 at 9:25 AM
There are 34 000ha of tidal flats in Roebuck Bay, the most significant Ramsar-recognised intertidal wetland in the world.
The migratory birds breeding, feeding and resting on the flats here is remarkable - and the massive increase in helicopter traffic to Browse will not only drive the humans crazy
October 25, 2025 at 9:22 AM
For 20 years now, Woodside have tried repeatedly to coerce the WA government to greenlight their Browse gas field project - firstly planning land-based at James Price Point (which protest action defeated), and now via a 900km pipeline pumping the gas to the Burrup Gas Hub near Karratha, at Murujuga.
October 25, 2025 at 9:16 AM
There are significant helicopter operations from Broome, huge loud twin-engine Sikorsky helicopters, servicing the giant Shell-owned Floating LNG Prelude rig, and the multiple Japanese-owned Inpex platforms in the Ichthyus gas field ("ick thuss", ironically the Greek word for *fish*) 400km offshore.
October 25, 2025 at 9:12 AM
One of the many quirks of Broome WA is the international airport - it's in the middle of town.

The 737s rattle their landing gear across the roofs of Broomes Chinatown on approach.

Anyone who has been to Broome will no doubt remember this vividly.

But the jets are not the worst noise pollution.
October 25, 2025 at 9:09 AM
A thread 🧵 about birds and helicopters and gas.
October 25, 2025 at 9:08 AM
The fact that ALL of those communities, but particularly First Nations people, have welcomed this whitefella to what is THEIR Country, seems a bloody generous gesture of goodwill to me.

I am grateful. 🖤💛❤️

#AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe
October 22, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Been humbled and amazed reading some of the local history across the Kimberleys on this trip, and the shameless exploitation of First Nations people.

The pearling industry in Broome was among the worst, with over 50 years of legalised blackbirding and indentured Malay & Koepang (Timorese) workers 🧵
October 22, 2025 at 12:39 PM
The buildup is intensifying, and the break of the Wet season feels very close now.
October 22, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Hermit crabs are everywhere, and the shore birds like oystercatchers and stilts are chasing them for a feed 🐚
October 22, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Nudibranchs are even harder to observe, their carapace colours blending in perfectly.
October 22, 2025 at 12:32 AM
The rock pools are busy with blue-ringed octopus, their incredible camouflage and benign appearance when not displaying threat behaviour a constant danger to unwary or international visitors
October 22, 2025 at 12:30 AM
The Kimberley beaches at low tide are alive, it's not just the sand bubbler crabs endlessly constructing their Sisyphean sculpture patterns before the next high tide.

Every other rock seems to harbour another animal making the most of their mini wet & dry seasons.
October 22, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Mundoo Island is in the middle of The Coorong at the mouth of the Murray River, fresh water one side, salt water the other. Quite a unique environment, but also how cool must it be to witness and photograph a tiger snake catching fish in salt water? 😳
October 19, 2025 at 12:40 PM
No storms in Broome so far tonight, but the humidity is heading towards 100% around midnight 🥵
October 19, 2025 at 12:35 PM