Cape York Rock Piles

Hi

If you're talking about the cairns on top of the path across the rocks to the tip of the cape, from my informationthere's nothing significant meant by it. As people climb to the tip some add rocks to the piles as a mark of them being there.
Happy to be informed otherwise.

Cya
:)

Okay thanks - we were there in July and just weren't sure if they were burial markers or had some other cultural significance.

Just human nature!
Whenever people walk a trail dotted with cairns, they always add another teetering rock to the top of the pile! Juts gets bigger and bigger!
Sort of like leaving their mark without desecrating the place with their carved initials.
Gerry

It looked like this 4 years ago

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and another

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Yep thats about it humans carrying rocks.
Also the amount of golf balls that must be in the water at the top.

All the best
Eric

I walked around the coast from the car park to the Cape at low tide and found the cairns very handy as they indicated the direction to take for the track back over the hill. The track is not very obvious from the bottom of the hill if you did not come in that way.

I believe that rock piles like that originated from two reasonings.. I believe the aborigines used to place rocks in piles such as these to let other communities know that they have been there and passing the lands etc. The other was the vikings travelling in their boats would make these rock piles on shore lines to mark their travels so that those following knew that they had been there and also that on their way back they were on track...

Although I believe the ones at the tip mean nothing and are just rock piles that tourists add to as they go along.

There are heaps of cairns along the track into Barnett Gorge in Kimberley - so many that we think walkers must have put a fair amount of effort into building them. There are many more and they are higher than what would just be needed to indicate the track.