There is a place forty kilometres north-east of Portland, Victoria, which makes for an unusual visit.
It is Lake Condah. Here are to be found remains of aboriginal settlements: the circular stone bases of
several hundred huts, rock-lined water channels, and stone tools chipped from rock not normally
found in the area. One of the attractions of Lake Condah long ago was its fish and the most startling
evidence of aboriginal technology and engineering to be found there are the systems built to trap fish.
Water courses had been constructed by redirecting streams, building stone sides and even scraping
out new channels. At strategic spots, they piled rocks across the water courses to create weirs and
build funnels to channel eels and fish into conical baskets. This is an eel-fishing technique which
has hardly changed to the present day. Beside some Of the larger traps, there are the outlines Of
rectangular, stone-lined ponds, probably to hold fish and keep them fresh. On the bluffs overlooking the
lake, stone circles are all that remain of ancient dwellings. Not all of the stones were quarried locally.
The huts vary in size, but all have gaps for doorways located on the lee side, away from the
prevailing wind. One theory is that the stone walls were only waist to shoulder high, with the top
roofed by branches and possibly packed with mud. The site presents a picture of a semi-settled people
quite different from the stereotype of nomadic hunter-gatherers of the desert.