The Bundian Way - an ancient Aboriginal pathway linking Twofold Bay with the Snowy Mountains - is winding its way on to national television.
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In February this year, a film team from The Australian Geographic Adventures television show were taken into the high country by Aboriginal Elder, Uncle Ossie Cruse and local historian, John Blay.
Their destination; the treacherous upper reaches of the Bundian Way. Their mission; to document the millions of bogong moths that gather each summer in the mountain’s crevices.
“They wanted to do something on the Bundian Way, and I suggested they focus on one aspect,” Mr Blay, explained.
“And the moths are a great story.”
Mr Blay is one of only a few people who know where to locate the moths, after years of researching, walking, and mapping the Bundian Way.
He is a long-term friend of Uncle Ossie, and the Bundian Way project officer with the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council.
Both men are committed to preserving the pathway for its cultural and historical value, and promoting it as a unique tourism entity.
Traversing more than 360 kilometres, the Bundian Way begins at Targanal (Kosciuszko) and ends at Bilgalera (Fisheries Beach, Twofold Bay).
It’s older than the Egyptian pyramids and China’s Silk Road, and is the first Aboriginal pathway to be registered on the NSW State Heritage Register.
“It’s the first known incident where Aboriginal people held out a friendly hand, to show non-Aboriginal people safe passage to the high country,” Uncle Ossie said.
White settlers made the most of the assistance, driving their cattle along the pathway to new pastures on the Monaro.
Artefacts from both cultures now litter the route, with most collected and preserved within the Monaroo Bobberrer ‘Keeping Place’ at Jigamy Farm, located between Pambula and Eden on the Princes Highway.
It’s hoped that access to the pathway will help reconnect people of all cultures to a lost past, and promote healing.
“We want Aboriginal children to come to this place, into the bush, and learn things,” Mr Blay said. “Land is culture.”
A vital part of that culture is the bogong moth.
Every summer they fly in from across the region, seeking the dry heat of the alpine caves, festooning the dark walls in their millions.
“Aboriginal people harvested the moths for thousands of years, as a nutritious food,” Uncle Ossie explained.
“Thousands of clans’ people from all over the country - from the coast to the tablelands to the plains - came to feast on them.
"They’d travel up the Bundian Way and gather together for huge ceremonies.
"They’d train and initiate young men, make marriage arrangements, and trade food and implements.
"It was a wonderful social interaction that continued for thousands of years.”
The Australian Geographic film team were privileged to retrace those ancestral footsteps as they made their way to the moth caves.
The film team - consisting of David Reyne (presenter), Scott Sinclair (director/producer) and a cameraman and sound recordist - found the six kilometre trek exhausting, lugging their heavy equipment up steep, bushy terrain. But the biggest challenge was keeping up with 82-year-old Uncle Cruse.
“It was a long way up, and Ossie put us to shame,” Mr Sinclair laughed.
“We kept stopping to catch our breath, but he just pushed along.
"For a man of his years, he’s very fit and sprightly.”
They were rewarded with a clear day, that really captured the essence - and revealed the distance - of the Bundian Way, with views all the way east to the coast.
But after three hours of scrambling, the first feeling was disappointment.
“Unfortunately there must have been a big deluge of rain before we arrived, which flooded the crevices and killed many of the moths,” Uncle Ossie said.
“John and Ossie were saying 'trust us, there are moths here. Trust us,” Mr Sinclair recalled warmly.
“They scouted around and found a few in a cave, so we were okay in the end.”
Perhaps in apology, Mother Nature conjured a wildlife spectacle that none had expected.
It not only compensated for the lack of moths, but ultimately stole the show.
“It was like a Alfred Hitchcock movie,” Mr Blay said.
“Hundreds of thousands of black ravens suddenly appeared out of the crevices in the granite, where they’d been hunting the moths.”
“They rose from the ground like a black cloud,” Uncle Ossie agreed.
Mr Blay believed the birds were acting on instinct, knowing that summer was drawing to a close, and with it the moth season.
Why they took to the wing in panic as the group approached was probably instinct as well.
“The Aboriginal people used to eat them too,” Mr Blay said.
“They didn’t normally hunt ravens, but when the birds were fattened on moths they were considered a delicacy.”
The film team was ecstatic.
“We have great shots of the guys walking back down from the caves, with the ravens against the blue sky and sitting like guardians on the citadel of rock," Mr Sinclair said.
"It was very dramatic.
“The whole day was a very special experience.”
* Uncle Cruse and the moths of the Bundian Way star in the first episode of the Australian Geographic Adventures’ series, screening on WIN from 12.30-1 pm this Saturday, May 23.