Once the Hills Hoist was synonymous with our way of life and every backyard across the continent had one. Usually with a few socks and a towel to dry in the wind.

My generation grew up agile, lean and lissome from countless hours swinging around and around. I would start at the back door, take a deep breath, break into a long, loping run and then literally fly through the air, across the rhubarb patch, to grasp the bars in one fluid movement. We all did.

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It’s a form of football uniquely Australian, played non-stop, full of frenetic one-on-one contests, dodging, weaving, sustained running, kicking the ball on the run and great leaps to catch a high mark.

Aussie Rules predates all other modern forms of football, such as American, Canadian, Rugby Union and League, Association (Soccer) and Gaelic football.

An indigenous game?

There’s always someone with incontrovertible proof that Aussie Rules evolved from Gaelic football, and some one else who has hard evidence linking sports from the exclusive English schools in the 1850s. But this distinctive game could have been played up to 50,000 years ago, for there are a lot of Aboriginal people convinced that it’s an Aboriginal game. They will tell you the white fellas just added some rules.

And they have good reason for claiming the game as their own.

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Hastings Newdegate Cave is one of only two Dolomite Caves on show in Australia. The rock is Precambrian, 600 million years old. Most tourist caves are limestone and are comparatively young — just 450 million years or less.

The Hastings cave group predates hard bodied life on earth, so there are no fossils. There’s plenty of cave life though, strangely pale crickets and blind spiders.

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