In the mid-1830s, government surveyor Robert Hoddle trudged around much of our region mapping property boundaries. Hoddle also fancied himself as an artist and painted several scenes of his surroundings, especially along watercourses.

However, as Hoddle often exercised a healthy dose of artistic license in his trademark watercolours, some of the landscapes depicted in his art are more recognisable than others.

One painting that has puzzled landscape architects and art aficionados for decades is his dramatic watercolour of the Ginninderra Creek titled, Ginninginderry [i.e. Ginninderra] Plains, New South Wales.

The National Library of Australia, where the original is squirreled away, speculates "it was probably painted during or after December 1832, when Hoddle surveyed the land of Richard Popham and John Langdon in the Ginninderra Creek area. Alternatively, it may possibly have been painted during or after 1835, when Hoddle surveyed Sturt's land near the Ginninderra Creek and Murrumbidgee junction".

For many years scholars have speculated as to this exact location. In 2011, the painting even featured in Bill Gammage's award-winning seminary-study, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia (Allan and Unwin), in which the historian and adjunct professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the ANU highlighted the changing landscape since European arrival.

In 2016, the hunt for the exact spot illustrated in the watercolour intensified when Tony Adams, town planner for the Ginninderry housing estate in West Belconnen announced a search for the location on the developer's website.

Dr Mary Hutchison is also at the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at ANU and she acts as a local history study consultant for the development.

"Several members of the public, including Craig Wedd, a lifelong resident of Macgregor, responded to the call, nominating locations," she reports.

"But after careful examination, all suggestions were ruled out - they either had the wrong aspect or lack of rocky outcrops."

Enter Steve Skitmore, an archaeologist well-known to readers of this column through his trailblazing work in rediscovering the Old Weetangera Road (Cycling Canberra's Ultimate Ghost Road, April 18) and shining the spotlight on the old Red Hill Camp (Hidden Heritage in Griffith, April 6, 2017).

Drawing upon the premise of the changing landscape since colonisation as highlighted in Gammage's thesis, Skitmore explored long stretches of Ginninderra Creek, imagining it devoid of the scrubby vegetation now growing along the creek corridor and surrounding plains.

"Indications are when Europeans arrived in this particular area there were a lot less trees than now and more open grasslands, managed by regular burning by indigenous people," Skitmore explains.

Skitmore eventually found a candidate for the location in Umbagong District Park. "The orientation seemed right, so too the rocky outcrops, but it was impossible to see the mountain range as depicted in Hoddle's painting," Skitmore explains.

Unable to see above the vegetation, Skitmore did what any self-respecting archaeologist would do. He promptly clambered up the highest tree he could find.

"I could see the tops of the Brindabellas rising above the horizon but needed to get that bit higher," reports Skitmore, who then called on the assistance of a friend's drone.

Within minutes of the drone hovering just above the tree line, Skitmore knew he had hit the jackpot. "While not quite as imposing, the footage resembled the spread of the mountain range in Hoddle's painting," he says.

Subsequent visits to the site near the back of Denny Street in Latham by Gammage, Hutchison and colleague Professor Ken Taylor, also of ANU, left the trio of academics convinced it was "highly likely" the site had finally been found.

Taylor says, "The basin-type landform in the middle distance and beyond fits the landscape shape of Hoddle's watercolour.

"It is likely Hoddle did a pencil sketch on site and then painted the watercolour from this and memory, and in the process embellished landscape aspects such as the shape and apparent height of the skyline hills."

Gammage agrees with Taylor regarding the over-sized appearance of the Brindabellas.

"The background is not necessarily to scale, as it may well be from a sketch done much nearer than the centre and foreground drawings," he reports, referring to a similar technique used by pioneering Australian landscape artist John Glover in Mills' Plains, Tasmania (circa 1832-4) "where the fore and middle grounds can be easily found today, but the background mountains are much higher and more prominent than in reality."

Skitmore says, "The only way to be 100 per cent sure of the location would be to find Hoddle's original sketch for this watercolour."

Never one to knock back a challenge, earlier this week your Akubra-clad columnist jumped in the yowie mobile and headed up to Sydney to the NSW State Archives, where Hoddle's field journals are kept under lock and key.

After a day sifting meticulously through his leather bound journals (some in a most fragile state), sadly no smoking gun is found. In fact, the only sketch in his journals is a very basic outline on the inside cover of his September 1832-May 1833 field book of what appears to be a broader spread of the Brindabellas.

However, the pilgrimage to the archives isn't a complete waste of time. The journals confirm that Hoddle definitely visited the spot where Skitmore captured photos with the drone on at least two occasions, while surveying property borders on December 8, 1832 and September 24, 1835.

"Despite the lack of a more complete sketch, based on the evidence available and lay of the land, there's really nowhere else it can really be," Skitmore concludes.

I have to agree. Do you?

The location: So where exactly was Hoddle's point of view for his famous watercolour of Ginninderra Creek? On the basis of evidence uncovered, it seems likely the view painted was that from the rocky outcrop on the northern side of the bike path that runs through Umbagong District Park, along the southern side of Ginninderra Creek just below Denny Street in Latham.

Tim's tip: Look out for the water pipe and power lines spanning the gorge. Perhaps someone should paint the same scene today, for I imagine in another 175 years with climate change and urban development, the scene may yet again be difficult to recognise.

Did You Know? According to Bill Gammage, "a key purpose of the work of the field surveyors like Hoddle was to depict grass, and the centre ground [in the watercolour] is pretty accurate on this ... and the foreground may be fairly accurate but also shows what I call transient detail such as Aborigines or stockmen to embellish the scene."

Umbagong District Park: Surrounded by the suburbs of Latham, Holt, Higgins, Macgregor, Charnwood and Flynn, the park is 50 hectares in size. Although much of the park is open space for recreation, the Umbagong Landcare Group helps to manage and monitor native habitat along the Ginninderra Creek.

Ancient artefacts: Umbagong comes from the Ngunnawal word for "axe". In an unmarked section of Ginninderra Creek below Want Place, Latham, there are several grinding grooves in the volcanic tuff of the creek bed that were used by Ngunnawal people to sharpen their stone tools.

Look out for: Growing among the rocky outcrop thought to be at the centre-right of Hoddle's painting are a number of plants that indicate this rocky hill may have overhung a wet gully at one time. These include the native raspberry as well as several fern species. Near Ginninderra Creek's confluence with Kippax Creek is a large area of native grassland, known locally as Blue Devil Grassland. Don't miss the spectacular flowers of the Blue Devil that bloom here in mid-summer.

CONTACT TIM: Email: timtheyowieman@bigpond.com or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick.

Clue: Moo

Degree of difficulty: Easy-medium

Last week: Congratulations to Peter Kercher of Holt who was the first reader to correctly identify last week's photo (inset/above/etc), sent in by Penleigh Boyd of Reid as a light fitting at the western entry to St Johns Anglican Church in Reid.

Peter just beat Roger Shelton of Spence, Narelle Blackaby of Flynn, and Michelle Paxton of Chisholm to the prize.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am Saturday, September 21, 2019 will win a double pass to Dendy - The Home of Quality Cinema.

At last weekend's Lifeline Bookfair, Rohan Goyne of Evatt couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted a 1909 Canberra contour map. Not only does the antique map show Springbank Homestead, the home of Rohan's great great grandparents William and Anastasia Sullivan after whom Springbank Island and Sullivans Creek are named, but, wait for it ... the map was personally signed by government surveyor Charles Scrivener. Scrivener mapped the Canberra region for the design competition for Australia's capital and was the first director of Commonwealth Lands and Surveys. He later worked closely with Walter Burley Griffin in his preparation of the 1918 plan for Canberra.

"The volunteer in charge of the maps section informed me that the University of Canberra had emptied its maps library to the fair," reports Rohan, adding, "it's amazing what public institutions will dispense with these days."

I've already offered Rohan double the $25 he paid for the relic. Not surprisingly I haven't heard back.