Inspired by his father, an expert craftsman of boomerangs for hunting and throwing, Michael Lyons inherited the skills and patience to perfect the art of making boomerangs and artefacts with earthy colours and traditional designs. In his workshop at 16 Bamblett Street, Michael can show visitors how he takes raw wood and turns it into magnificent didgeridoos, boomerangs and coolamons by soaking the branches in water, debarking, hollowing it out on his lathe where required, sanding, polishing and painting. Michael is also a skilled didgeridoo player and can often treat visitors to some tunes. Michael welcomes visitors to his workshop by the river on Bamblett Street, where he beautifully crafts his didgeridoos, boomerangs, coolamons, emu eggs, clap sticks and other artefacts.
Across the road, Michael has built the Wiradjuri Cultural Centre, a Keeping Place for traditional tools and Wiradjuri artefacts, including; winter and summer humpies, grinding stones, fire-starting stones, hunting boomerangs, fighting shields, payback (law enforcement) shields, message sticks, soap stone, emu eggs, possum skins, and kangaroo skins made into a rug.
A descendant of the Wiradjuri nation, Michael leads cultural tours around his traditional country, teaching about bush foods, bush medicines and survival. Michael may point out a tree carving of the goanna, which is the Wiradjuri totem, or a scar tree where a Coolamon had been made from the bark of the tree, or he may take you to the river to nature’s supermarket, retrieving a witchetty grub from a red gum sapling, showing you where river mussels are located and checking into the Hilton, a huge 500-year-old tree used for shelter!!
For pricing for tours, please contact Michael directly.
Check out the Sandhills Artefacts website for more information.