Moodini Bluff - rock cairn at top.

Rohan,

I think cairns are put up for a number of reasons. Navigation, surely yes - but also to leave a mark of some kind.

Here's a cairn I found on Mount Feldtmann last year. Perhaps put there by Frank Hann, not sure - check out the growth of the tree:

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Here's another one on a hill near Mount Worsnop which I wrongly believed to be on Mount Allott for a number of years.

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Here's the real Mount Allott with a cairn on it. John Forrest did put a cairn on the mount in 1874 - is some of the original cairn right here??

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I've put a few cairns up too - when I'm on a significant hill or rise somewhere that has no cairn I will usually put one up. Why you ask? To mark the spot somewhat. The aboriginals did not put cairns up so it cannot be normal human nature. I would never claim to be the first white man at a hill somewhere, but the next person after me - there will be no doubt :)

Here's one I put up at Point Cornish in the Great Sandy Desert. It's not marked on maps so don't worry checking - and I forgot to take a GPS reading there so don't ask me where it is. East of Point Massie somewhere.



Here's another I put up at Nipper Pinnacle, there's a message in there somewhere.

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And another I put up last year at the rarely visited Wilson Cliffs, to mark the southern portion of the cliffs right above Carnegie's Rockhole, though I reckon I got a bit too greedy with that last rock :)

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Cheers
Alan