The magnificence and abundance of this region is not a recent discovery, Aboriginal Australians traversed these mountain ranges, plains, and rivers for at least 20,000 years prior to the arrival of European settlement. When you explore this region today you step into ancient lands, rich with Aboriginal cultural significance.

Far from being one homogenous entity, Aboriginal Australia is made up of hundreds of different groups and as many different languages. Groups living in the area now intersected by the Kings Highway included the Ngunnawal near Canberra and Queanbeyan, the Ngarigo south-east of Canberra, the Gandangara near Goulburn, and the Walbanga and the Wandandian from Braidwood to the South Coast.

These groups literally lived off the land, eating wattle-seeds, tubers of the yam daisy, orchid tubers, nectar from the Banksia tree, fish and crayfish from the rivers, and larger animals like possums. Those living inland were more nomadic than the coastal groups, possibly due to a greater supply of food on the coast. One of the routes taken by Aborigines moving between the coast and the highlands can still be followed today, now known as the Corn Trail.

The Bogong Moth Festival 

While today the annual influx of Bogong Moths is met with despair by many householders, for traditional Aborigines it was a time of great celebration. Every December and January groups would make a pilgrimage to the Snowy Mountains to capture these nutritious and tasty creatures. High on the rocky outcrops of the mountains the men - not the women - would feast upon bogong moths, roasting them in the ashes of a fire. Women took moths back to the coast and crushed them into a flour type meal from which they baked a biscuit-like snack.

British explorer Captain James Cook - the man to be credited with "discovering" Australia - was sailing north up the coast in 1770 when he made his first ever sighting of Aboriginal Australians, at Murramarang, just north of Batemans Bay. By the 1820's the first white settlers were arriving on the south coast and inland around Braidwood.

The arrival of Europeans had a dramatic impact on local aborigines. White settlement disrupted their nomadic lifestyle and dependence on the land, food crucial to their survival became harder and harder to access. Reports from the time suggest a diminishing supply of fish and native animals, even fresh water. 

Some Aborigines adapted to their changing world by working for the new settlers - becoming labourers on properties, cutting bark, picking potatoes, and washing sheep. 

 

By far the greatest threat to the Aboriginal population came from "European" diseases, like the flu and chicken pox, to which they had no immunity. These diseases devastated the population, reducing the numbers of Aborigines in many areas to just a handful. Within just 50 years of European settlement, populations were decimated and centuries and centuries of ancient culture and tradition were destroyed. The bogong moth ceremonies also came to an end.