A monumental Indigenous art site in remote western Queensland has been officially opened to the outside world.
Ancient paintings and etchings of megafauna, emu symbols and the traditional Indigenous Seven Sisters story cover the towering cliffs at Turraburra.
"The story wall goes for about 200 metres … and it is filled with tens of thousands of engravings, of paintings and petroglyphs," said Iningai woman Suzanne Thompson.
"We're very lucky and very honoured to be custodians of something so rich, with that much knowledge on it."
The site is at Gracevale Station, an hour outside of Aramac in remote western Queensland.
The almost 9,000 hectares of land was returned to the local Iningai people's custodianship in 2019.
In just one year they have restored cleared land, excavated disused waterways and reduced cattle numbers on the former grazing land.
Now it is being opened to visitors as a place of learning, and will be renamed under the traditional owners' name of Turraburra.
"The wall houses what we call the university teaching wall of our songlines," Ms Thompson said.
"This is my birth country.
"It's just something that is innately a part of who we are … country completes us."
Preserving stories for generations
Plans are in motion to build a multimillion-dollar education centre made from local materials.
University of Queensland architect John de Manincor has been working with the locals to bring their vision to life.
"So getting timber from this property or the region," Dr de Manincor said.
"Some of the interior walls will be stone manufactured from quarries locally."
Ms Thompson said it would be open to school groups and researchers.
"We wanted to make sure it blended in with the environment," she said.
"That it wasn't some big eyesore that you walked into."
While it is not certain exactly how old all of the art is, Ms Thompson says thousands of past generations have left their mark.
Ms Thompson said the Iningai people hoped that the work at Turraburra would preserve those stories for future generations.
