Oh what a delight to see turtles emerge from the water! Walking through a National Park in North Queensland has so many visual beauties.

I have this strange affinity with rocks. Every time I see large bounders on a bush walk I want to go up to them and touch them – greet them. They seem to have such an amazing energy vibrating throughout them…. so I tend to get pulled towards rocks when I see them – as if they have a magnet pull on me. Lol.

My friend and I were walking past a stream that had large rocks and I felt drawn to follow the track down. I took a moment to sense the energies of the land – was it OK to walk that land? Sure, it’s National Park and many tourists have walked these lands – but I always check in with the energies for myself. It was OK for me to go there, but the land felt burdened – heavy. The land was ok to walk on but the water felt dangerous.

Clambering up on one of the rocks, being careful not to touch the taboo water, I sat – tuning into the energies in the environment. And then I received a magical surprised of two turtles staring at me on the left side. Their little heads bobbing up out of the water checking me out.

I called out to my friend to come closer to see the turtles, “Be careful not to touch the water” I said, “it feels like death water.”turtle in water

We sat on the rock watching the turtles and my friend, who is an Indigenous man, quietly says to me with his eyes wide open in excitement, “I’ve eaten turtle”. It looked like he was eager.

And me, being in two worlds in my mind think, 1. “Ah, but they’re so cute, how could you do that!” and 2. “Oh, I’ve never eaten turtle before that’d be way cool.” and then one more voice popped in my mind said, “These are death waters. This is sacred turtle land.”

Ah. With a full belly from scrambled eggs and baked beans it wouldn’t make sense to eat these turtles anyways. (Thought #4). That would be a bush food, and only if needed.

We turned to walk to the waterfalls and I saw the sun sparkling on a rock where a SKULL and CROSSBOW symbol could be clearly seen. WHOAH! This not only felt like death waters, but it could also been seen.

So, we continued walking to see the waterfalls.

We entered the waterfalls area at the bottom of the gully and stood in front of pools of water and in front of us was this massive rock face of an old woman turtle. WOW! I just stood there with my jaw dropped staring at the old woman. This was indeed sacred turtle land.

The next day I chatted briefly with another local Indigenous man and he told me the Aboriginal myth of that old turtle and how she swallowed all the water there so there’s not much water flowing any more.

But he also told me how none of the locals swim in that black water I saw was death water, because that’s where their people were rounded up and massacred. Shot to death.

I’m glad I’m aware of the energies of the land because I certainly wouldn’t want to swim where people were killed not to long ago. Those black waters really felt heavy (in energy).

But it was a true blessing to sit with those turtles. They were beautiful and curious enough to have a look at us. I’ll take their lovely turtle vibe with me on my life journey. I’m very grateful to have paid my respect and homage to that old woman turtle. A very precious memory.

(The images in this blog are not of the actual turtles seen. There were no pictures taken at the sacred site.)