Milbrodale cave Aboriginal art site in the Wollombi region

R.H Mathews first visits the Milbrodale cave Aboriginal art site in the Wollombi region. While surveying from Bulga through the ranges via Wollombi to the Macdonald River area, he is commissioned by farmer Benjam Richards to survey the hamlet of Milbrodale, 20 kms south of Singleton. His attention is drawn to one of the great Aboriginal art sites of eastern Australia. It includes an extraordinary depiction of the creation hero or “great spirit”, Biame painted in red and white ochre. Mathews knows Aborigines from this region. His friend “Charley Clark, native of Broke speaks Dharkinung language”. This site becomes the subject of Mathews first publication on Aboriginal rock paintings. He publishes his sketches of Biame at Milbrodale in 1893. Charley is also a source of information on the local bora initiation ceremony. Mathews later publishes his description of this ceremony, “The Burbung”) in 1897. (Ford; Thomas, Culture in Translation, 31-32)